Stroller Scythes

The Upper East Side during the day, during the week is a strange place, a twilight zone of stay at home moms, college kids, the elderly, and the privately wealthy wandering the streets. There aren't any big businesses tos peak of, excepting restaurants, grocery stores, and the occasional non-profit. So it's mostly resident pedestrians between 10 and 2 before the masses of school children clog the streets.

The most amusing character among this bunch is the agressive mother, aggressively pushing her stroller in a do or die game of chicken with the other sidewalk walkers. They may as well have chariot scythes attached to the sides of their enormous buggies that look equipped to go offroading in the desert, with their large springloaded wheels and the capability to convert from bassonet to forward facing stroller. Just check out the Bugaboo website to see the extrem stroller options they deliver.

They stare you down with a determined move it or lose it glare, just daring you not to yield and stay in their way, powerwalking towards you all the time. And you had better not fuck with them during rush hour, when they are blocking the sidewalk with a trail of three pretty little children trailing behind them. They will not move, pull their kids in, or slow down--it's dodge or get run over. I know that being a UES Mom is a stressful job, competing for schools, status and a sucessful life for their star of an infant, but it a death match on the sidewalk necessary?

Maybe. Maybe raising a kid in the city is just that stressful.