Oh Jerome

I don’t know how many times a week in my New York life something happens that brings me back to what might possibly be the greatest sitcom of all times…

Yes, you guessed it. Seinfeld.

It wasn’t until college that I started tuning in, but because the series still had a primetime spot and was running in syndication, I got caught up very quickly. Mind you, this was long before the days of DVDs, when a normal Friday night was renting an entire season of a show to watch over the course of an evening. Nevertheless I managed.

And because my friend Tara loved Jerry as much as I did, and studied every episode with fervor as great as my own, there was rarely a day at least one of us couldn’t say: ‘That was so Seinfeld. 

I will always remember the sandwich shop around the corner from school that every now and then had Yankee bean soup on it’s blackboard out front. Whenever we spotted it, we’d stroll past in honor of Elaine singing, ‘Yan-kee bean, Yan-kee bean, I like my Yan-kee bean.’

Too many years have passed since those early days, but still the love lingers. Thankfully, so do the references. This past weekend I was at a bar singing my heart out with some random stranger to Petula Clark’s ‘Downtown’. The woman kept telling me, it’s Petula Clark. Petula Clark. And I kept thinking, ok, ok it’s Petula Clark. I only know it from Seinfeld!

Then today there was my co-worker who went on a midday rant about being at Chipotle the night before sitting next to a man who was using a fork and knife to eat his burrito. ‘A fork and knife to eat a burrito?’ she said. I told her it was better than using a fork and knife for a Snickers! 

Then there’s tonight—and this is the topper. I was on my way home, walking down Seventh Avenue, around 7pm, still not dark, when out the corner of my eye, I spot a woman wearing nothing but a bra for a top!! Unlike Kramer, I was not operating a motor vehicle at the time and I didn’t hit anything in my stupor. But, I sure as hell did a double take. Who wears a bra without a top? Even in New York in 2010! It was my Seinfeld moment of the day. My encounter with Sue-Ellen Mischke, heiress to the O’Henry candy bar fortune.