My morning

This morning, walking up to my usual street cart on the corner of 86th Street and Central Park West, having just bound up the subway steps, two at a time, to a glorious morning and the raspy, weathered voice of the Metro man calling in his singsong way "Metro! Get your Metro!", today alternating it with "Your bus is here!" for those taking the cross town bus which did indeed sit at the corner unloading and loading passengers, and there, in front of the cart, stood a young man, only one (for some mornings there may be a line of 5 to 7), with a blonde pony tail buying a single banana, and from the cart leaned out the slow, cherubic man who everyday pours me a large coffee with milk even on days when I don't stop because I prefer Dunkin Donuts but don't always have the time to go over to Amsterdam and then he'll tell me the next morning that he had poured my coffee but it's ok because he drank it himself, and this cherubic, Arabic man, who, according to a NY Post internet clipping posted on the 6th floor of my building, is engaged in what amounts to a race war with the neighbors, who accuse him (or one of the other men who work there; there's an older, nasty piece of work, but it couldn't be my cherub) of keeping his cart active 24 hours a day (apparently against New York law) and he, in turn, is quoted - mind you, I've seen the clipping as I leave the conference room from morning meetings - as rebutting that with the diplomatic phrase "that's a Jewish conspiracy," is now telling the pony tailed fellow that a banana costs 50 cents and the fellow, sensibly, according to the laws of commerce, presents a dollar bill but is told, I heard it, that he (the Arab cherub) doesn't have any change, and suggests the purchase of two bananas for a dollar, which the pony tailed fellow finds agreeable to the tune of the response "I can dig it."

I watched this transaction and then bought my large coffee, for $1.75, which I paid for in quarters.

Amen.