Throwing Mama On The Train

My mother will be landing at 5:30 am tomorrow.  She is currently in Israel where she was taking care of my grandmother.   My mother has not been to New York City since the late 80's. In the late 80's, Manhattan was a shithole.  Grafitti on the subways, crime was higher than it is now and everywhere smelled like the inside of an UGG boot if you took it running on a marathon.  

Before we moved to NYC, Wifey and I decided to not bring the car.  We will be living very close to my office and her school and New York is so expensive, there is really no need for a car.  I told my father I will be giving him my car (no, it was not as a gift.  My 1999 Kia Sportage had less use to it than an empty checkbook on the first of the month.  I was giving him garbage).  

A few days after telling that to my father, I got a call from my mother:

My Mother:  "After a long talk with your father, we have decided we will let you keep the car."

Me:  "But I don't want the car. It's New York.  I have to take out a second bank loan just to pay for parking there."

Mother: "But how will you get around? or go grocery shopping?"

Me: "uh, they have these nifty little things called the subway here mom"

Mother: "Oh no! My son is not taking the subway!  Those things are dangerous, and you can get into trouble".

You see, my mother has not been here since the mid 80's and the only thing she knows about New York is what she watches with my dad everytime CSI: NY or LAW & ORDER or CSI: SVU or any other crime show that happens to take place in NYC comes on.  Problem is, it's not that bad here.  Thousands of people take the subway every day.  Sure, some get robbed, some even fall onto the tracks (see: Alcohol + Moving Train = Good Story post), but this doesn't happen often.  

My mother cares, which is a good thing.  She should.  She is my mother.  But, I had to tell her that we will survive, and in fact, one of the main reasons this blog was started was to give my mother relief that I am ok by being able to see new posts come up every morning and let her have the peace of mind that her son has survived another night here.   

So she has been in Israel for a couple of weeks and she is finally making her way here to NYC.  My father asked me to go meet her at JFK (at 5:30 a.m.) so that she does not get lost.  I agreed since I do not want to get a call at 9 a.m. from my mother telling me she is lost somewhere of Bushwick.  I told my father we will probably take a taxi back but he said "No. Take her on the train".  At first I thought he was being cheap but then he continued, "Your mother needs to get the New York experience.  Take her to your house on the train.  It will be fun.  She will get to see what you go through every day and see that it isn't all that bad."

It made sense.  Then I came across this article on the news this morning:

"U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was discussing terrorism with Ehud Barak, Wednesday, when an aide rushed in to inform the Israeli Defense Minister that Palestinian militants had just fired a rocket from Gaza into a woman's clinic located in a large shopping mall in the southern Israeli port city of Ashkelon. "Let's go down there together," Barak told Rice, according to an Israeli source. "I want you to see with your own eyes what we're going through."

I had to laugh.  You see, Mr. Barak is doing to Mrs. Rice what I will be doing with my mother tomorrow.  Nothing is better than to take someone into Ground Zero and let them see (as both my father and Mr. Barak have said) "what we're going through".

Israel and New York.  Both attacked by terrorists.  Both have more Jews than a Bat-Mitzva for the daughter of a Hollywood agent.  Both, have something that we "go through" that apparently requires first hand experience.  I think I will still take my mother by Taxi.  Not because I don't trust the train, the train is harmless.  I just think that after coming from a place where missles are landing, it would be nice to give my mother a nice ride in a taxi instead of subway.  After all, taking a taxi is an experience you have to see, to really know what it is "I go through".