Lessons From the First Week

You call ConEd about electricity  and they can start your account right away but they don’t do the gas. For that, you have to call National Grid, who cannot send a technician out for a week. It’s unclear why he needs to see your stove but he does. This means that you cannot cook for a week. Also, as is the case for all such visits, you will be given a window of 12-6 and if you want that narrowed down, you have to pay for a “premium appointment;” this would mean waiting around for 2 hours instead of 6. Once again, you can be grateful for your microwave.

You may ask the super to change a cylinder on one of the locks on your door because the realtor told you that it’s safest to do so. The super may insist that you change two cylinders on the two locks on the door for a $100. The realtor may say that that’s a good price. The super may start the job and then notice that the lower lock (which can be used to turn the bolt from the outside) is broken and needs to be completely replaced. This will raise the cost of the lock-changing to $200. He may insist that it is best to do this now, despite your gentle demurral on the ground that you had not budgeted for this. You may give in and he changes the whole lock (since he conveniently happens to have one in his office). He may then notice that the mechanism in the door frame into which the bolt must slide is missing and he needs to add that. No extra cost. So you may suddenly have a garish blue ultra-secure lock on your door, a new secondary lock atop it, and both are somewhat redundant since most of your money has been spent on them.

You can get a pizza delivered at 11:15 at night and it’s delicious.

You can take the train to Ikea and tote things like “Notudden” back with you.

You can see a priceless 1000-year old artifact and drink high tea at the Met and hear a woman driver in Tribeca call a bicyclist a “f*****g p***y,” all in the same day.