I’m often confused by the photos The Huffington Post chooses to accompany their articles, so I decided to caption some. Click the image for a larger view.
When traveling on the train, one is able to witness a lot of great parenting skills. Here’s some tips I’ve learned through observation over the years:
1. Discipline
Is your kid annoyingly discussing the painting they made at daycare or singing a song they made up about frogs? Can you tell by the smiles of other passengers that this is starting to annoy them as well? Immediately tell your child to stop and be quiet. If they giggle at you and keep singing in gibberish, try shaking them a little. If they’re in a stroller, move them to the seat next to you. If they’re in the seat next to you, put them back in the stroller. This shows that you mean business. For cases of extreme cuteness, a good slap on the face will set them straight. You’ll know you’ve done your job when the laughter has turned to tears and the people who were smiling at your child will no longer make eye-contact with you.
2. Strollers
Find as large a stroller as possible so that it takes up most of the subway staircase and is too heavy to be carried down. This way you can slowly bump it down each step. If anyone offers to help you carry the stroller down the stairs, tell them you’re fine. You don’t want to inconvenience people or show signs of weakness. If you have a child old enough to walk down the stairs, keep them directly next to you so that no one can squeeze past. You deserve to get to the train first because you have children. It’s the same as with lifeboats. Once on the train, be sure to knock into a few people with the stroller. It encourages them to get out of the way and clear a seat for you.
3. Snacks
Everyone knows how annoying it is when you’re taking your kids home at midnight on a Tuesday and they start passing out in the seat next to you. Prevent this by bringing along some Cheetos and a can of soda with a straw. Make sure the soda is caffeinated. This also doubles as a good breakfast to get them going in the morning. If you can’t manage to fit this in your purse just grab some McDonalds french fries somewhere along the way. These type of disposable snacks are great because you can just leave them on the seat or floor when you exit the train.
4. Texting
Do it. As often as possible. What’s that you say? There’s no underground cell-phone service? That doesn’t stop you from reading through old texts stored in your phone! Better yet, put your headphones in to drown out the sound of your child’s wailing so that you can really focus on the text exchange. It’s not every Tuesday that you hear a rumor that your baby daddy got some slut pregnant. Just every other month or so.
5. Grooming
Take a look at your nails. Subway rides are a great time for grooming, be it your hair, nails, or makeup. It’s also a lot more pleasant than looking at the huge chunk of snot sliding down your kid’s face. God, kids are gross! Reassure yourself that their Cheeto-y nastiness is not a reflection on you by always carrying a mirror.
6. Observe
Not totally confident in your parenting abilities after reading this? Just watch the parents who lead by example every day. The subway is full of everyday heroes like the woman in this video:
(standing, left to right: Erica Warnock, Chelsea Clarke, Marcy Jarreau, Aubrey Plaza; sitting: Emily Askin, Emily Felt, Beth Newell)
Bombardo has it’s final show ever tonight! A bunch of its members have moved or are moving away from New York, so they are finally ending their run.
Bombardo is arguably one of the most influential independent improv groups in New York City EVAR! If you were an indie group that formed between 2006 and 2010, you definitely did their Friday night Gotham City Improv show — and it was often your very first show. If you didn’t do their show, then you hadn’t really completed the indie improv circuit that, at that time, also included Rogue Elephant’s show and the Tantrum/Mailer Daemon/fwand show. (Both at Under St. Mark’s.)
They were also the first all-girl improv group to form that was completely made up of current students and not established veterans. (Ms. Jackson, a successful all-girl group formed before Bombardo, were made up of vets from the improv community, i.e. Jess Allen, Tara Copeland.)
And they were definitely one of the only all-girl groups to find their voice quickly and stick around. They helped influence the formation of a lot of copy-cat girl improv groups after their formation, but Bombardo would consistently blow these groups out of the water.
And, don’t quote me on this, but I’m 99% positive that Bombardo pioneered the format of having two opening groups and just one headliner. For a long time in the indie improv scene, there were two “headliners” and one indie group that opened for those two groups. See: Reuben Williams/Rogue Elephant (later Ugly Stick/Rogue Elephant), Primal Bias/Five Dudes, Tantrum/Mailer Daemon (later Tantrum/fwand), and so on. Bombardo’s attendance numbers convinced everybody pretty quickly that this was the format to go with.
If you saw a Bombardo show, you were almost guaranteed to see at least one scene with a cat (Chelsea), a witch (Aubrey), a sassy black lady (Marcy), a clueless mom (Felt), a clueless date (Erica), an ornery teen (Beth), some sort of monster (Askin) or a scene with a group of vapid, annoying ladies with high-pitched voices (all).
So, say goodbye to Bombardo tonight. There’s a jam at the end!
Bombardo’s Final Show Gotham City Improv @ 10:00 PM 48 W 21st Street, 8th Floor $6 admission, BYOB
I think we may have also pioneered the all girl group photo where everyone tries to look as sad as possible?
