Reasons Why I'm Not Coming Back into the City for a Long Time

Today I came in to the city for a doctor's appointment and ultrasound. That went fine and then I visited Aaron Basha on Madison to oogle the baby shoe charms and then I headed to a lovely lunch with Emily at Icon in the W Court hotel on 39th. All's well so far. After lunch I met up with the Husband to show off the 3-D ultrasound pics and we wandered over to Saks for a few moments. As Thisbe can attest, Saks is our happy place. Unfortunately, my run of luck ended there. I should have gotten on a train straight away after going to Saks. But no, I tried to push my luck. I went to Buy Buy Baby-- picked out a host of goodies including a skip hop insulated bottle holder, skip hop travel changing pad, sleep positioner, shopping cart liner and play yard sheets. I spent about an hour there. I go to the register, everything is rung up, I give them a gift card that I wanted to use and all of a sudden the registers froze. All of the registers. We were told it would be at least ten minutes. I waited. Once the registers came back on line, my gift card still couldn't be recognized. Their solution? Use it next time. Considering that the only Buy Buy Baby locations close to us are in Paramus and NYC, I don't anticipate there being a next time. Unable to complete my transaction with the desired payment method, I decided that it wasn't worth it. One hour, lost. Then I start walking up seventh avenue. For whatever reason I was craving a frappucino and the woman at the service desk at BBB (asked prior to register meltdown) said there was a Starbucks a few blocks north. Well, I managed to find the only 10 block radius in New York without any Starbucks. I didn't even know such a geographica oddity still existed. I keep walking and soon enough I'm within sight of Penn Station. At this point, I'm talking on my phone to the Husband and walking up 7th at a leisurely pace (again, since I'm nine months pregnant, and ideally shouldn't be walking around anyway...) All of a sudden I feel something catch the back of my shoe (which is a 2 1/2 inch heeled sandal) and it almost trips me/rips my shoe off. I turn around and see a man pushing a baby carriage. At this point I call him an asshole. I think its justified. He was behind me, I didn't dart in front of him-- I had been walking in a straight line, and personally I had already had my fair share of people pushing strollers with abandon. The guy then yells various curse words at me. As if it were my fault that he tried to take my shoe off with his cheap Maclaren rip-off umbroller. His boyfriend does the same and makes hand gestures because I'm on a cell phone, as if it distracted me from the eyes I have in the back of my head, all the while their Asian baby looks on, confused. Yes, I was hit and then cursed at by a gay couple and their adopted child. What could happen next?

Next I go to Penn, still needing a frappucino. I need the frapp even more at this point. All I can find is a Dunkin Donuts. Fine. I get in line and as I'm being asked what I want to drink a woman in her early twenties gets in my face asking for money. I tell her I don't have any extra. She starts to walk away and then turns and hits me in my right kidneys. The DD cashier yells at her. She keeps wandering around the shop. Unfortunately, by the time I got my drink and headed over to the police kiosk she had wandered away. Usually you always see a couple of cops patrolling Penn. I guess Bloomberg's cutting back.