Which makes me think, ‘How young is too young for a tramp stamp?”

Well, went for a little trip during lunch to enjoy the sunny and beautiful weather today. I figured I wouldn’t have anything to write about until after tonight’s performance at Caroline’s tonight, but then the MTA started the ball rolling, as it has so many times for me.

On my way downtown on the 4 train, the MTA announced that due to a building collapse on 116th street the 4 train would not run downtown. So I had to switch to the 2 train to get downtown. All of a sudden the beautiful weather started to feel a lot hotter. Especially when several hundred people were trying to cram onto the 2 train.

While aboard the 2 train I started to get a strange odor that can only be described as collective human filth. I happened to be standing near an interesting group: an angry black man who appeared to have a seizure every time someone bumped into him, despite the crowd, a young twenty something student who apparently has not learned one of my five rules of riding the subway – if the subway is packed and so is your backpack, take the f–king backpack off so you don’t hit people with your bag, three Asian tourists who were moving around the crowded train like they were searching out real estate prospects, and a young Latina woman listening to music so loud in her Ipod that I am now having hearing difficulties.

So naturally I got off the train feeling like a bi-racial John Rocker, but at least I could breathe easier. I had a brief lunch and then got back on the train going north.

On the train going back from my lunch I was peacefully trying to read Ghost Wars (note to blog reader – if you are a Racial Chameleon and currently look quasi-Egyptian, a book about Afghanistan and Bin Laden will induce curiosity on the subway), when three young men got on and began having a loud conversation, distracting enough in volume, but even more distracting was the amount of times they dropped the word nig-a. It was so absurd that I thought the first one to say it 200 times won a prize.

So as I walked from the subway I was relieved to be done with NWA, but then saw a disturbing sight – a 12 year old with a tramp stamp (i.e. a lower back tattoo – something I was not a big fan of until recently). And it was a relatively ornate one at that. You know, one that said “I’m easy, but don’t think that means all your friends can have some too.” This was the breaking point for me. What the fu-k is wrong with people? I had a few questions for this girl so here they are (since she no doubt reads my blog):

1) Are you 12 or younger? She appeared 12, but, if she drinks the same water as many Bronx girls and Greg Oden of Ohio State, she may in fact be even younger.

2) Where are you parents? I mean, when high school lets out don’t they have enough time to make sure you don’t go from 6th grade to the tattoo parlor?

3) What kind of example are you setting for your kids?

Ahhhhh, springtime in the Bronx. Sunshine, Yankees baseball and the cacophony of blaring car horns, catcalls almost criminal in nature, and the word nig-a fills the air.