THIS. PARK. SUCKS.

In my busy schedule I so rarely have the chance to sit down on a park bench, take a deep breath, and take it all in. Now I'm no park expert. I haven't sampled parks from abroad. I have never drunk merlot on a park's grassy hide. And, if you'll forgive me for saying so, I have never taken a park to bed. With that said, I was wholly expectant in my folksy, backwoods naivety to have a one of a kind park experience when I decided to seat my fanny on a Jackson Square bench. Anyone might notice from where I was sitting that Jackson Square is a small park. The tiny, triangular plot is near the center of Greenwich Village, just off Greenwich Avenue, near Shoegasm, which is, I understand, a shoe store.

I noticed an offensive sign on the wrought iron fence warning me not to feed the pigeons or squirrels. I didn’t notice any such critters for me to hatch such a conspiracy with. About the same time I noticed that my bench was wet. It was, in fact, raining. It had been raining all day. I’m not sure what I expected, but shouldn’t New York City, the world’s most advanced city, have some kind of weather related contingency plan for its city’s parks? Maybe the benches could have some kind of electronic insulation device that melted precipitation on contact. What about retractable glass domes? The more I thought about all of Jackson Square’s missing innovation, the more the rest of the park started to irk me. What was with that fountain? I’m not seeing any water coming out of that thing. What? Is Jackson Square’s fountain too fancy to spill water out for the soaking pleasure of the cast of Friends? I’m not seeing the cast of Friends anywhere. Maybe they know the same thing the pigeons and squirrels know. This park sucks.

That was when I decided to try a new park. I walked to Union Square and sat myself down on the park’s west side. It wasn’t long before I noticed that this bench was also wet. I had become a repeat victim of this city’s pandering to the whiny, heedless voices of the so-called weather system. I could sit in my wet seat no longer than a minute before the sting of corruption goosed me to my feet. How long was this city going to keep making kickbacks for the “rain?” I was apparently a head of the curve as far as robot benches and bubble domes were concerned. But where could I sit until the glorious dawn of that progressive day?

I took off running north. I ran until I hit Bloomingdales. I went through the glass doors. I found a circular clothing rack and surreptitiously sat in the center of it. I sighed to myself. It was peaceful there in the center of ladies’ sweaters. If I were to throw an unchewed piece of gum from where I was sitting onto the floor beyond, someone, perhaps a small child, might pick it up and chew it. I took a deep breath and hoped for the future.