A Crash Course in what you will find in NYC in one afternoon.

When I first moved to NYC, 12 years ago, I used to go an internet cafe on Bleecker Street (it's still there....right across from John's Pizzeria, which is my favorite) to apply for jobs and look for apartments, and find a band....which are very daunting tasks when you're new in the city, to say the least.

On one particular day, I was doing my thing like any other day. I'd put my backpack underneath the table I was sitting at. In this backpack were my resumes, a walkman & a few mix cassette tapes (again, they were very lean times, and it was in 2000), notebooks with lyrics, and a folder with all of my resume copies as well as job/band/apartment leads -- basically, a bunch of shit that I NEEDED, but wouldn't be worth jack shit to anyone else.

As I got up to leave, I reached underneath the table....no backpack. I looked....and it was gone. POOF! Clearly, someone had pulled a fast one, literally, right under my nose, and stolen my backpack. Great. I was SO pissed off, but mostly, I was pissed at myself for allowing that to happen.

I went back to the apartment in Hell's Kitchen that I was renting a room in, and watched tv, still very pissed off. The phone rang. It was some dude who worked at a diner down the street from the internet cafe that I'd been at. He said that he'd found my bag in the bathroom, and asked if I'd like to come down and get it.

I went to the diner, grabbed my bag....and there was NOTHING missing. I ordered up a cheeseburger, and asked the dude at the counter how they'd found my bag. He said that some dude who appeared to be quite shady (probably a junkie) had come into the diner....gone into the bathroom for several minutes....then left. He apparently realized how worthless the items in my bag were (to him) and left it there.

On one hand, some asshole had stolen from me....on the other, someone else was kind enough to return it to me.  I had fallen prey to the anonymous thief by being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and been blessed with the kindness of a complete stranger, both in less than two hours.

Welcome to New York!