Bananas and grapes.

I've mentioned this before, but I can never do it enough: I hate New York. It's not the city itself, but the people. About 60% of New Yorkers are complete assholes. 15% are hipsters. And the other 25%, who are normal, don't make up for the assholes and hipsters. Even if it was 75% normal and 25% shitty, I think 25% would be too high to overcome. So, we're at more than 3x the acceptable shitty threshold. I don't know how this many people, all living in one place can be assholes. You can't say, "It's a city. People in cities are dicks." Not true. A few examples to the contrary: DC, Seattle, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Chicago, Denver, Portland, San Francisco, and just about every other city.

Here's what happened...

Actually, before we get to the subject of the email, one thing... You know you're going to bomb if you start your set off by saying that you live in Jersey City, and mention how shitty it is, and roughly half of the audience responds, as if rehearsed, "I LIVE IN JERSEY CITY AND IT'S NICE." It threw me off. I thought they had to be joking. They were not. I told them, "Besides the fact that it's full of trash and always smells like piss... we'll dismiss those things... Yes, I'm dismissing the fact that the entire city smells like piss, and walking down the street involves doing a trash slalom. I'm being very generous. But how about this: Yesterday, I there were two kids in the street, one with a toy gun, the other with a stick, which he held as a gun. And they were pretending to kill everyone that passed. Then at 10pm, my roommate and I went to get Chinese food and ran into two other 5-6-year-olds who were without parents, in the street, having a sword fight with big sticks." These people weren't phased. They looked at me like, "Yeah, so. We gangsta wit' it in JC." I can't explain how pissed off I am that people think Jersey City is nice. It's like they've never been anywhere else in the world. They have no basis for comparison. So, here's what I'm pledging to do: If I'm ever president or a super-hero, just after I make the manufacturing of single-ply toilet paper a felony punishable by drowning, I will force everyone in Jersey City to move somewhere else for one year. Then they will never come back. Then people who aren't idiot assholes can move into Jersey City. Done.

Okay... Bananas and grapes.

I'm working at a temp job, and there's a fruit stand in front of the building. I buy fruit in the morning, usually from another stand, because the one in front of the building is inexplicably more expensive. Sometimes I forget to buy from the others and am forced to buy from this asshole.
Last week, I wanted bananas and some grapes. The guy tried to force me to buy three pounds of grapes. I told him I only want a half-pound, because I'm not trying to make juice. He insisted that I can't separate the grapes. I showed him that I can, and tore the bunch to the size that I wanted. I have since bought 5 bananas from him. Everyone else sells bananas for $0.35. This dickface sells, or I should say 'sold', them for $0.50. Yesterday, once again, I forgot to buy a banana from a guy who isn't a dick. So, I went to this guy's stand, grabbed a banana, and held out a dollar for him. He yelled, "One dollar!"
"I'm only getting one."
"One dollar!"
"I only want one. It says here that it's two for a dollar."
"One dollar! Two banana, one dollar!"
"I don't want two banana."
"You eat two banana. You no buy one banana."
"You're trying to make me eat two bananas?"
"One dollar, two banana!"
"I bought one banana from you yesterday and about 20 other times."
"Two banana minimum."
"You're a dick."

Then I bought two bananas, because I was scared. I felt like he knew something that I didn't know. Why else would he force bananas on me? I'm also wondering if the comedy club standard of two-drink minimum influenced the guy. If so, this would count as irony.