This Just Happened

Not that my Fort Greene neighborhood that I've called home for 13 months is Brooklyn's answer to Gross Pointe, but I figured if I was going to encounter any unsavories on my journey home Monday night, it would have been closer to Bedford-Stuyvesant.

Because the MTA is the most disorganized government-run agency in America, I never know if I should hop on an A train (typically express) after the evening commute because sometimes -- not never, but not always -- it makes local stops in place of the normally local C train on the same blue line. C trains run far less frequently than the A, so I hopped on the latter when it pulled up moments after I strolled into the High Street/Brooklyn Bridge station.

What's odd is that the A train's first three express stops in Brooklyn are the same three local stops the C makes, and because you can never hear the conductor's announcements, you really never know that you've stepped onto the wrong train until you see the Lafayette signs flying by.

So the A train finally stopped three stations after Lafayette, and I figured I'd allow myself an interesting 30-minute, after-dark walk home from the Nostrand Avenue stop in Bed-Stuy.

But it wasn't until after I'd walked a mile and gotten just a couple blocks from my home that I was asked by the most cracked-out-looking excuse for a grown man if I wanted to buy a pet taxi for $5.