You can ask but they still won't tell

So someone I voted for didn't win yesterday. Seems as good a time as any to talk about someone else I never voted for.

The executive branch of our country's governmental foliage is visiting New York today. It seems that my new office is on the path of his motorcade when he visits the UN.

Let's leave aside for the moment the fact that he doesn't even think the UN is a legitimate governing body...no, let's leave it, it's hard but I'm going to.

For about 2 days the police have been lining barricades up along some of the streets near the office. I should have asked when I went out to lunch, I should have backed a nice officer up against a wall and demanded full disclosure. But that's really not my style I prefer to observe and see if I can figure it out on my own and ask only as a last resort. (Yes, I'm kind of a guy, I also have little besides beer and cookies in my refrigerator, some people find it charming.)

I go out of my office, walk West for a block on 50th Street and can see from there that there are barricades in front of my subway stop which is across Lex from where I'm standing. I cave and speak to a peace officer.

K: Is that entrance completely closed?
PO: Yeah
K: Can I get in at Grand Central?
PO: Uuuuhhhhh, yeah, that's running.

Now, if I were any sort of detective at all I would have noticed the hesitancy and the evasive answer right away. Instead I walk a block down Lex and run smack into another peace officer blocking the sidewalk.

K: How do I get to Grand Central?
PO: (with a shrug) You're gonna have to go to third and walk down and see if you can get through.

Um, see if I can get through? The hell? It's a major transportation hub. I'm now seeing the light about that first officer. Yes, the train is running, but can you get there from here? Frankly, ma'am, it's a crapshoot. What is this, the wild west? I'm just trying to get on the public transport and get my ass home and barefoot and into the kitchen, just like the president wants me to be. Really, you'd think he'd be more helpful.

Which all means that I then go back down 49th Street, effectively circling the block and ending up back at my office building, then walk downtown another 5 or 6 blocks and across a block and into the teeming mass of humanity that is Grand Central. Grand Central on a day when half the pedestrians have just been dicked around for 8 or 10 blocks like I have. Now that's a happy, healthy mob of constituency right there.

I thought I'd be more angry about it but I come from a state where the road signs tend to say stuff like: "Alton - 2 (2 miles back where you came from, didn't you see it?)" so I wasn't all that surprised.



*Photo credit for this entry to Steph who observes I Love New York Day just like I do but takes better pictures.