The Rise of Clachet
This week I have three different stories to tell, literally all occurring within the same weekend. Buckle up.
A bit of background info, my friends are clachet as hell. Clachet is exactly what it sounds like — a mix of the words “classy” and “ratchet” coined by my friend’s girlfriend to describe our shenanigans. We’re five loud Hispanics with belly laughs and a lot to say. The term is…scary accurate. But anyways, this past weekend, we went out to celebrate a birthday within the group. They went to brunch, and I met up with them after at Central Park to hang on the grass and blast Bad Bunny, which may or may not have involved wine (see? clachet). A nice lady came up to us and asked us to bump up the music, and then asked if any of us were Hispanic. Lucky for her, I’m Cuban, one of the boys in the group is Mexican, the other is Peruvian, his girlfriend is a mix of like three or four different Hispanic nationalities, and their third roommate — the birthday girl — is Dominican. She told us our music was great, and then went on her merry way. I’m pretty sure that was the last pleasant interaction any of us had that day.
From there we went to a really terrific ramen spot in the Upper East Side. When I say a terrific ramen spot, I literally mean terrific ramen. Because the actual experience itself was catastrophic from start to finish. When we got there, the group suddenly went from five to nine, as some friends of friends joined in. We had a reservation for only eight. Evidently someone saw us trying to figure it out, complained, and the waitress (not kindly might I add) let us know we couldn’t add another seat to the table (even though group seating is capped at ten per table). So we sent two people home, as one person didn’t want to leave alone. That put us back down to seven. From the minute our rear ends hit the seats it was Rise of the Karens. At this point I feel obligated to point out that while we were a big group of kids in our 20s, we were nowhere near as loud or belligerent as the table behind us, full of kids also in their 20s, who were consistently taking shots with one of the waiters and then proceeded to shatter said shot glasses on the ground. But I’m guessing that didn’t matter, since they were consistently buying shots. A woman at a table near us yelled “DO YOU NOT SEE THAT PEOPLE ARE EATING WITH THEIR MASKS ON? WE ARE AFRAID.” First of all, like I mentioned, group seating in NY is capped at ten. If you don’t feel comfortable with the possibility of sitting next to a big group…don’t eat out. Second of all, the theatrics of putting a mask on while eating and then audibly complaining about being unable to get your fork under your mask is unnecessary to say the least. The waitress seemed disgruntled, and when my friend raised his glass to meet her halfway so she could refill it with water, she snapped and told him to set it back down.
A little while later, while we were all actually in the process of eating, a table with a different set of Karens finished eating (with their masks on), and started eye-ing me while they waited for someone to bring the car around. I didn’t have anything that belonged to them, and there was nothing on my face, so I stared right back. Karen decides to yell out, in front of her CHILD, “What, dyke? Yeah, that’s what I thought. Can’t even fucking eat in peace anymore.” She then translated it to Spanish, because I guess she must have heard us speaking it over dinner. I was about 6 seconds away from climbing over the table and going at Rosetta Stone herself, before I realized a couple of things:
- I would surely have gotten us kicked out, if we hadn’t up until that point.
- I was setting an even worse example for her child than she was.
- I was at a function for a friend’s birthday and didn’t want to be that person.
- This is not Hialeah.
I have had some shit said to me over the course of the last three to four years since I cut my hair short — everything from senile women at Walt Disney World (yeah, the happiest place on Earth…that one) telling me that this wasn’t the men’s restroom, to people switching from he to she pronouns in the same sentence, unsure of which one to use. I don’t know if it was the already present tension at the restaurant, the Truly I had drank before, the waitress, the connotation of the word she used that quite literally boils my blood, the Karens, the fact that this isn’t supposed to happen in liberal New York City, or a combination of all of the above, but this lady sent me flying over the edge. So I did the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, and I just shook my head at her and went back to eating my ramen. I paid my tab and went home, even though my friends were planning on going to another bar down the street. It wasn’t until later on that I realized they had noticed my mood shifted, but didn’t hear the woman’s comments. I really just didn’t want to cause even more of a scene. And remember, we’re clachet around here. One of them would have snatched her weave and dumped it in their ramen.
So after all that — on Sunday I decided to head over to Central Park to walk around with two of the boys. I leave my apartment, and I’m minding my own business on my phone, trying to figure out which train to take while walking. I shit you not, two steps into my walk, this man stops me dead in my tracks. He slurs something along the lines of “DO YOU NOT RESPECT OTHER PEOPLE? LOOK UP WHEN YOU’RE WALKING. THAT’S SO RUDE MAN.” I instinctively lowered my phone, which I assume he took as a sign that I was about to bow down to his demands, because he followed with “THANK YOU, SIR.” Y’all…I could not shut up this time. I really could not. This was steps from my apartment, and you know what I had had? IT. I had had it. I pointed out that he was visibly intoxicated, to which he replied “so?” So…..I’m sure if I was a hefty 200 lb muscular man your belligerent self would not have stopped me because you might be drunk, but you know better than to pick on someone twice your size. I had made a valid point, so he of course started yelling obscenities at me in a prominent sidewalk of an otherwise quiet street in Chelsea. When I turned around and pointed out that I was a woman, he proceeded to notify me that he didn’t care what I was. Again, I’m suuuure he would have stopped a man twice his size to warn him of the dangers of texting and walking, which kills exactly 0 people every year.
Some final thoughts: I am very self aware. I understand that being Hispanic, young, and half bald as a woman will collect some stares. It’s when people go out of their way to be rude that I remember I was raised by a single mom who took crap from absolutely no one. There’s just a time and place to say things, and sadly not everyone has grasped that concept yet, even in their 50s.
Also, happy fuckin birthday Karla.