“Excuse me, can you tell me if Times Square is close to here?”

(Pretzel vendor clutches sides with laughter)

“Yes, yes mister, this is 52nd street, you go up ten blocks and you’re on 42nd street.”

Me: “Oh, right.  Thanks.”

(Pretzel vendor nods, still helpless with laughter)

Friend: “I guess technically we should have known that.”

Me: “Especially since I was in 42nd Street back in high school.  I sang ‘Shuffle off to Buffalo,’ for God’s sake.”
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Me: “Flight attendants from Israel?  So, is Israel kind of a stressful place?  I mean, you read the papers, it seems you walk into a cafe and order a triple espresso, and you get both a great caffeine jolt and a face full of shrapnel.”

“No, no, that is just to sell papers, Israel, it is a beautiful place. Best food, best people in the world.  Ask anyone, ask those people there.”

(Points to dance floor.)

Me: “Oh, you know them?”

“No, I do not know them.  Any Israeli you meet?  They have the ability to spot other Israelis anywhere.”

Me: “I’m totally the same way.  Except I can only spot people who watch Buffy.
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Then there was an entertaining but failed attempt to get into a club that was celebrating, and I am not making this up, Gene Simmon’s magazine Tongue. They’re letting in truckloads of young hotties and we got the “You’re not on guest list A, B, C, D, or any list through Z” treatment.  It’s not that I don’t know I’m old and unhip, but I had no idea I was older and more unhip than Gene Simmons.

I’ll get my revenge.  Wait until I’m famous and publish my bestselling magazine Clavicle; we’ll see who gets the last laugh.