AREA GYM FORGETS COMMA

The above photo was taken in a local gym that shall go nameless because surely they don't actually want you to steal their free weights. Even though that sign does say "please do not... return them when done."

AREA MAN EXPRESSES AGGRESSIVENESS THROUGH SHIRT LETTERING

You were a white guy loading groceries into the back of your lifted Jeep in a Costco parking lot. We did a double take reading the back side of your sweatshirt. "IF YOU CAN READ THIS, BACK THE FUCK UP," it said in block letters. While this shirt poses many questions (what the fuck is wrong with you, etc.?), we drove on past and found a parking spot in another aisle.

YOUTHFUL HUMAN LEARNS WORDS

You were on the bus and you were very, very young, and according to your mother you had recently learned of the existence of and words for buses. You were not yet old enough to know that once you get on a bus, you no longer need to announce when another bus is coming. "Bus coming! Bus coming!" You said this many times on the bus, as other buses approached and passed by. It was very cute. There was giggling. The other people on the bus seemed to like it. Fish don't know they're in water; babies don't know they're on the bus. Bus coming!

AREA MAN LOOKS INTO MIRROR

On a Friday morning in Summit Slope Park, you—a male in your 30s, perhaps—were sitting on a picnic table and hunched over a small mirror. We were in the midst of a run and across the street, but we heard you groan. We concluded that you're either a raging narcissist or a shameless coke fiend.

POLICE STRAP AREA MAN TO GURNEY

Last Friday night, you were writhing and shouting in Spanish as five or six police officers tried to strap you to a gurney. "No tocarme!" you said. "No quiero ir al hospital!" you said. You didn't want them to touch you or take you to the hospital. The silent flashers on the ambulance parked at the intersection of Olive and Denny tossed chaotic light around the scene. We stopped to witness, even after our friends had walked along into Dino's for slices of Sicilian. Your Spanish didn't sound like the Spanish of old neighbors of ours in Poughkeepsie, nor did it sound like the Spanish of the men we used to wash dishes with in the South. It sounded like high-school Spanish. You had a fuzzy beard, long hair piled up in a bun, and tan skin. We were confused. Was this a native Spanish speaker? We asked the cops what was going on. Two of them asked us to step back and redoubled their efforts to constrain you. They tried to push your head back awkwardly, they tried to lash your arms to the bed, but you kept escaping. Another cop took us aside and said you'd been running up and down East Olive Way, a danger to yourself and others. We overheard some officers wondering aloud about the drugs you might have taken. "Probably that spice?" one of them said. Spice? An Amante employee with neck tattoos confirmed the cop's story, and said he was the one who called it in. He had his iPhone out, its light shining on the cops. He was ready to record in case anything went down. We watched the scene play out more or less the same way over the course of the next four minutes. They'd strap a few of your limbs down, but you'd break free seconds later. It went on and on. We were hungry for pizza. And so we crossed the street at the light and entered Dino's. "I'm watching them, I've been watching the whole thing go down," said the bearded door guy at Dino's. We're all watching now.

SHANA TOVA

After the service concluded, the congregants handed out little plastic cups of wine for the adults, grape juice for the kids. You, never having been to a Rosh Hashanah service before, downed the two tablespoons of wine in one gulp. An older man tapped you on the shoulder. "You're supposed to wait for the prayer," he said, admonishingly. (Getting wasted is fine. Just pray first.) L'chaim!