METROPOLITAN DIARY
‘Chapel of Love’
Dear Diary:
My husband and I got married at the City Clerk’s office in February. Our appointment was at 9:15 a.m. on a Friday. We were only allowed to have one witness at the ceremony, so my sister-in-law joined us while other family members waited outside in the car.
Afterward, we walked to Jack’s Wife Freda for a celebratory brunch. As we sat down and waited to order, “Chapel of Love” by the Dixie Cups began to play loudly over the restaurant’s sound system.
Our waiter came out with cava for the table, with other members of the staff following behind, clapping to the beat and smiling.
The rest of the patrons joined in the merriment. No one complained that their quiet weekday breakfast was being interrupted by the celebration.
My eyes filled with tears.
— Sarah Henry
Emergency Repair
Dear Diary:
It was December 1995. I was working at a Madison Avenue ad agency and I was on my way to a new colleague’s holiday party in Carroll Gardens. I was 22, ready to conquer the world and quite flattered to have been invited to the party.
My friend and I had just come out of the F train station when I felt as if I’d stepped into a deep hole. Looking down, I saw that the heel on one of my new black boots was barely attached.
I wasn’t about to show up at the party with a broken boot, but I wasn’t going to turn around and go home.
There was a bodega up the block, and we went in looking for Krazy Glue, which I foolishly thought would be enough to fix the heel.
The young woman at the counter asked why I needed the glue. When I showed her, she called out something in a language I didn’t understand, and a young man in military clothing appeared with a large toolbox.
He motioned for me to give him the boot, and then he proceeded to power drill the heel back into place. I stood there balancing on one leg like an awkward flamingo as people came in for milk and bananas.
The young man reattached the heel and even put some layers of cardboard inside the boot so that I wouldn’t feel the screws.
I offered to pay him, but he refused and sent me off with a gentle warning: Don’t dance too much.
— Alina Shteynberg
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/10/nyregion/metropolitan-diary.html
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