A Slow Gotham Sunday?

Unlike families with little tykes or lovers who share the night at the Hilton Times Square, I woke up real late this Sunday morning. As usual, I rushed down to the Hilton restaurant at 11:35 for my free breakfast, a perk of being a Dimaond VIP, which would otherwise end at noon. [I suppose I'm glad that half of year of non-travel did not demote my elite status!]

Hot cheese blintze, Spanish omelette, scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, smoked salmon, fresh fruits and yogurt. Yum! I took a bagel, cream cheese, capers and the smoked salmon and made them into a delicious breakfast sandwich that most restaurants will gladly charge almost a $10 premium. I love my creative thinking. Outside the box... Notice that I did not get anything healthy for me, like cereal or oatmeal, which were sitting there whispering, "John, you know better than to eat all those other foods. Shame on you!"

I suppose I sort of redeemed myself later on, as I didn't eat all of the sausages and bacon on my plate. The sausage was cold and tasted sweet. Maybe it was those maple apple flavor kind? And the bacon was crisp and hard like a dip stick. Does nobody know how to cook proper bacon these days? They should be kind of soft and chewy.

While not wanting to be bored all alone, I decided to keep myself entertained. So I went to the front desk and saw before my eyes a large stack of the Friday edition of USA Today, and a lone pile of the New York Times Sunday paper. I thought fresh news was better than two-day old news, so I reached for the New York Times. As I grabbed it, I thought Holy Shit! It was the one and only last copy of the New York Times! Yet somehow, it sat taller than the stack of six or seven copies of the USA Today!

The cute front desk girl saw the unspoken reaction on my face, so she struck up a small chatter. I asked if that whole thing was the entire Sunday paper. She replied, "Yeah, I know, right? It has been a slow day! Even the morning news anchor opened today with, 'Well folks, it has been a real slooow weekend.'"

I had to gather myself for a second and process what she said. Here I was, with a single copy of the New York Times without the adverts thicker than the typical Chicago Tribune Sunday paper with all its glorious adverts, and she said it has been a slow news day. Was she being sarcastic? But soon enough, I realized that if this is what a slow news day looks like, I really wouldn't want to be the Sunday paper route boy working for the New York Times when it had been a busy news day!


Holy shit, indeed!