Strolling on the River

Is it a stroller or a golf cart? 

There are 8 million people in the naked city and every single one of them is in my way. Between the Christmas tourists lollygagging along Sixth Avenue like it was ribbon night at the State Fair and the packs of Bosnian refugees hijacking my subway in their frenzy to see the “The Gates,” I’m surprised I haven’t found myself a bell tower and a rifle yet. The good news is, Christmas is gone for another nine months, and the Christos have gone back to violating European cities with their saffron bedsheets of Satan.

However. I live on the Upper West Side and that means one thing: strollers. Everywhere. On the sidewalks. At Filene’s Basement. In the grocery store. Have you been to a grocery store in New York? It’s hard enough to carry a can of soup down the aisle without having to turn sideways; trying to get by when there’s a stroller THE SIZE OF A HUMMER in the way, with the mom standing there yapping on her cell phone, oblivious to the fact I need to get by so I can go home and eat my soup so my low blood sugar doesn’t cause me to BEAT TO HER TO DEATH, is virtually impossible.

And the strollers are not only gigantic, they are more pimped-out than anything you'd see on Monster Garage. I’m schlepping my stuff around in a tote bag like a jerk, while the stroller jockeys are strapping lumber from Home Depot onto their roof racks.

I haven’t even gotten to the part where stroller = high probability of screaming baby, although with all the groceries, dry cleaning, furniture from Pottery Barn, there’s no room for a baby. I saw a woman carrying her baby in a kangaroo pouch while pushing a plasma TV in a stroller the other day.

When did this happen? I don’t even remember having a stroller when I was a kid. My parents stuck me in a cardboard box and dragged me along behind them with a length of clothesline. I think I turned out fine.