Small things are not so small...

A few weeks ago I was entering the train station at Times Square. As I went down the steps there was a very large, very drunk, and intimidating guy hassling every woman who walked past. When I say hassling I don't mean at the level of making rude remarks, I mean that he was using his bulk by standing aggressively in their path, and using his really foul mouth to make women afraid. It would have been less than stupid of me to confront him. However, as I reached the bottom of the steps I went directly to the station booth and reported what was going on. The woman, safe in her glass and metal booth, looked in my eyes and asked, "so what do you expect me to do about it?" Frankly, in that moment, I had several perfectly usable sarcastic remarks come to mind, but instead I calmly suggested that she contact the cops. She told me she was too busy and the maybe I should call them myself. Let's just say that I felt frustrated. What I really wanted to do was to scream rude things at her, but I didn't. Instead I went through the turnstile into the station to look for a pay phone. (No cell reception down there.) Naturally, there was a pay phone, and just as naturally it was broken. It was only as I turned away from the sticky and disgusting non-communications device that I found myself looking directly at three uniformed officers. I went over and told them what was going on upstairs, and reminded them of the often advertised credo of New York City, "if you see something - say something." The fact is that I did see something; I did say something. The problem apparently was that what I reported had nothing to do with guns, knives, or bombs. I was not reporting an abandoned suitcase or backpack tucked under a bench. I was not reporting potential widespread death or destruction. This was just a big besotted jerk. What I was doing was making an attempt to live in world that cares about the things that make a difference in everyday life, such as respect for others, personal dignity and other such arcane ideas. I suppose I wasn't alerting the authorities to the sort of terrorism that the slogan infers, but it was after all - terrorism. If we as NYC citizens see something and say something and the response is , "so what?" I'd say we're in trouble. The woman in the booth simply didn't want to take responsibility for what was happening on her watch - which is, after all, pretty much her job description. The police did go off to take care of the problem, and assured me that they would speak with booth-woman. I felt better after that because for my part, I felt that I had done some small thing - right.
It's just the way I see this...