The Relative-Enjoyability Scale of Strangers

by Julie Beck and Nathalie Rayter

+ 100 The bus driver who was utterly unperturbed when one of the front tires exploded immediately after we stepped onto the bus. (It’s unclear if the combined six pieces of cake we consumed that night were the last straw.) “Well this bus ain’t goin’ nowhere,” he said .

+ 81 The guy next to Julie on the train who jostled her and yelled “BOO” to scare away her hiccups. When it worked, he giggled with delight and wished us a “happy, hiccup-free afternoon.”

+ 77 The deodorant zealot who gave us a totally unsolicited review of her favorite natural deodorant in an aisle at Whole Foods, which kept her odor-free through “both a long day at the office and an African safari.”

+ 69 The British man we met on Halloween night who, upon learning our costumes were Kate Bush and a Dalek, asked if we were going as Anglophiles.

+ 55 The kids who chased us down the street to tell Julie she looked like their science teacher.

+ 43 The acid-tripping teen who beat the ceiling of the subway tunnel with a 7-foot piece of PVC pipe, declaring to any and all passersby: “You can’t pass the motherfucking pole!” We passed it.

+ 20 The guy who approached us at the bus stop, gave Nathalie the ol’ up-down and said, “You’re so beautiful, especially from behind.” She blushed and stuttered that she had a boyfriend. “Man, I wanna shake that dude’s hand! And tell him that he should put you in handcuffs and never let you go.”

0 Ho, the former occupant of our apartment, who showed up three days after we moved in to reclaim the hair dryer he left in the bathroom and stayed for half an hour, telling us boring stories about how he chose his LSAT test site based on acoustics, then asked for our phone numbers because we seemed like “fun girls.”

-10 The drunk man waiting next to Julie at the bus stop who told her “if I was a girl, I wouldn’t wear my hair like that.”

– 46 This guy.

– 72 The middle-aged man who, completely shellacked at 7:30 p.m. on a Thursday, lit a cigarette in our favorite taqueria and danced in front of a booth, taunting us: “You can’t sit down!” Angry at being asked to go smoke outside, he threw his taco at the wall.

– ∞ The train masturbator who held his t-shirt in his teeth and his dick in his t-shirt. The methodical rubbing did not break rhythm when we made eye contact, nor, presumably, when we fled the car.

Nathalie Rayter has been asked for her phone number by two different Hilton bellboys while riding the El. Julie Beck pretends to be asleep on the train to avoid such encounters.