So I'm riding shotgun in a Jeep Liberty cab inbound to Manhattan from La Guardia.
Three of my colleagues are crowded into the backseat, discussing the latest work gossip. I'm hanging on for dear life while the Philippine cabby nonchalantly executes acts of automotive daring that would make
Jack Bauer carsick.
We end up stuck in slow traffic near the
Midtown Tunnel. The driver, seemingly oblivious to the relieved silence that had befallen the passenger compartment while we were catching our collective breaths, went rummaging through the depths of a large lunch sack sitting between us on the console.
He pulls out an avocado and holds it up like a magician producing a rabbit from a top hat.
"You know what this is?" he asks in his best broken English.
"Yeah. I like avocados," I answer.
"You eat one of these every day for 45 days," he said. "It will make you head come up."
"Whatsthatyousay?" was my reply. "I think my head is up as far as I want it."
"No. It will make your head come up," he repeated, pantomiming a pinching movement with his fingers, as if he were pulling strings out of the top of his head.
Through a combination guesswork and charades (which had the added affect allowing the cabby to demonstrate his skill at driving without the use of his hands), my colleagues and I learned that the he was telling me to eat avocados to make my hair grow.
"Makes small hair grow big and strong," he said. "If have no hair, not work. But like you, weak hair will be strong.
"One each day for 45 days."
Now granted, I'm aware (to paraphrase Dennis Miller) that as I've pushed on into my mid- to late-30s, much of the population of the once bustling downtown of my scalp has fled to the more desirable neighborhoods of my nose, ears and back.
And granted, the cabby seemed very sincere. He was grappling with a "molting" problem of his own and was eager to share with me what he thought was the solution. His theory, as I was able to decipher, was that the oil in the avocado would work as a sort of follicle fertilizer, strengthening the puny hairs so that they become big, strong hairs. Kind of like an organic Rogaine.
Frankly, looking at the cabby's locks, I wasn't convinced.
But you tell me. Is this worth trying? Has anyone else ever heard of this? Is it healthy to eat an avocado a day for a month and a half?
And more importantly, has anyone ever gotten any
bad advice from a cabby?
tagged: New York, taxi, cabby, hair loss, avocado, travel, health
There's a lot of made up media buzz around how this is a continuation of a "border war" that has been going on since before the American Civil War, and how for the first time in history the game has "significance" on the national college football scene (the significance of which is highly questionable in and of itself).
But for those of you looking for a clue as to who is going to win this weekend, let me give you a hint: The winner has already been decided.
We end up stuck in slow traffic near the Midtown Tunnel. The driver, seemingly oblivious to the relieved silence that had befallen the passenger compartment while we were catching our collective breaths, went rummaging through the depths of a large lunch sack sitting between us on the console.
"You eat one of these every day for 45 days," he said. "It will make you head come up."
Like the majority of my colleagues, I voted for W as the place to stay. And like many of my colleagues, I regret choosing W.
So the initial impression is the W is pretty cool, and you'll be happy choosing W as your hotel. But it doesn't take long to figure out that all the loud music, groovy décor and weirdo lighting is as much a distraction as anything.
Almost right away, I could tell she was a straight shooter, a breath of fresh, honest air when politicians had become increasingly two-faced and dishonest.
The Saddle Ranch, one of the new The Legends theme restaurants, features old-timey saloon decor with a genuine mechanical bull, big-screen TVs, an 8 brazillion decibel sound system and a horses ass sticking out of the wall.
You can take this time to admire the aforementioned decorations which include servers dressed in supertight t-shirts with even tighter Daisy Dukes. Our server's shorts were so tight you could read the label on her underwear. It read "Thursday" which was strange because we were there on a Saturday.
