Tourists and Tall Buildings

There's one essential difference between touists and locals . . . . tourists stop. And I mean everywhere.

Scenario One: The doors open, a group of people starts to get off the subway determinedly as another group waits impatiently to get on, and suddenly, the couple leading the group off stops and looks up at the signs in the station trying to figure out whether to turn left or right. Discontented moans, annoyed sighs, and the locals step around these obnoxious tourists, a handful of them muttering things I can't type because my mother might read this.

Scenario Two: I'm walking the two blocks to my office building positioned on 6th Avenue and 42nd street - a block from Times Square. I pass a huge group of people all stopped and gawking at a tall building. Oh no, someone's going to jump, I think to myself. And then I see the tour guide, propped on a light post. I pass them, silently amused at my silly assumption, only to be stopped a dozen other times by nameless tourists unable to keep themselves from tilting their heads back awed. I brush past them with a look that lets them know I'm completely annoyed . . . I have somewhere to be.