Harlem Haters

You’d need a pretty adventurous spirit and open mind to make it with Jen and me this evening. After church we headed to Tuk Tuk for sum yum Thai food with friends and then went into the city to run some errands. NYC has the only stand-alone Asics store in the country and they’ll analyze your foot and run in order to recommend the proper shoe. Turns out I’m an over-pronator and need, to no surprise, $120 shoes for correction and protection. Whatever, they’re comfortable, look cool and, as much as I’m on my feet, I need good shoes.


The “adventure” we’ll call it all started when we went looking for a carrier to haul our terrier. I called the city’s K-mart and new Target to make sure they had them before we went. K-mart had one that was too small so off to Target (in Harlem) we went. Why Target would choose Harlem as their Manhattan location I don’t know but I figured it couldn’t be too bad. I mean I work with people who live in Harlem… and they live to tell about it. Of course the subway wasn’t running all the way there so we had to use a combination of trains, buses, and walking. I know, it’s already becoming ridiculous. After getting a little turned around we realized we might not be in the best ‘hood when I stuck out so much I might as well have been albino. A group of young African American males said, “Hey, that guy has new shoes in his bag,” which is the moment I decided to turn around.

We finally made it to Target and they had sold out of carriers, people were rude, and after waiting in line for a while our cashier flipped her light off and said she was closed. All this was beyond annoying. After buying some random things we took Target’s free shuttle bus that continuously looped a video about how special Harlem is to a train that was running (but had rats). We promised we would NEVER go back to the East River Plaza. In addition to the Target it has a Costco, Best Buy, Marshalls, and Petsmart that could be convenient if it wasn’t so ghetto.