Lifestyle

23 Times When New York City Is Literally Hell On Earth

by Dan Scotti

“Hell” is not just a word to be thrown around lightly. It’s not one to be overused, for that matter, either. For example, I went to the deli with my dad this past weekend, and the line was -- let's be fair -- rather long. "It's hell in here," he proclaimed. "No, dad," I tried telling him, "This isn't hell. This is quite the norm for a Long Island deli on a Saturday morning at 11 am." See, crowded delis aren't hell.

As we approached the front of the line, the yoga-gear-clad woman in front of us proceeded to order half a dozen bagels, with low fat cream cheese, toasted, and -- wait for it -- SCOOPED OUT.

See, this, my friends, is hell. Not only is "scooping out" a bagel sacrilege (a process that involves removing the most sacred part of the bagel -- the fluff, if you will), but it also takes about 10-minutes-per-bagel to do so. Now this is a situation I would deem hellish. Like, c'mon, sweetheart. There are bags on bags of "Bagel Chips" in front of the register, if you really wanted to eat a crispy, tasteless piece of thin bread.

Are you getting it now? “Hell” is reserved for those extra special moments of life, where you’d rather be anywhere else, but can’t seem to escape.

You feel that cold sweat start to drip down your brow, that sudden urge to punch the closest human to you (even if she does happen to be a nun or a rabbi), and you wish you had a pillow to scream into (or to take you out of your misery, altogether: hospital style). Does this stir up any flashbacks? Mmhmm, good.

These caliber of moments tend to pop up pretty frequently here in “The City That Never Sleeps.” In fact, when you’re in “The City That Never Sleeps” and a bum falls asleep on you while on the subway, you suddenly realize that the city does, in fact, sleep, and should -- justifiably -- be nicknamed, quite simply: “hell.” Here are the 23 miniature versions of “hell” that New York City supplies its residents, on a seemingly daily basis.

1. Riding the 7 train, at 5:15 pm, in the middle of August, with the AC dripping dark-colored liquid on your forehead.

2. Trying to study for your LSAT, GRE, GMAT or MCAT on any of the many international parade days on the calendar.

3. Seeing an attractive girl at a club, offering to buy her a drink, only to retract the offer once the bartender hands you $100 tab -- for two shots of Stoli with lemon.

4. Ordering from Seamless, calling your weed guy, falling asleep... and missing out on both.

5. Spending $200 for two brown bags of Whole Foods groceries, bypassing a taxi by choosing to walk home (in an attempt to balance out your morning spending), and it starts to flash flood.

6. Waiting hopelessly for people to filter through the turnstile, when nobody has a MetroCard out.

7. Getting stopped on your way to work (by kids who are selling candy bars to fund their basketball team), on a subway grate, blowing hot, smelly, air up your nostrils... on garbage day.

8. Going to a club and having a penis.

9. Riding the subway past midnight, with your iPhone battery at 1 percent, after smoking a little too much weed at your friend’s house, and there’s a dude claiming to be possessed by devils.

10. Hitting the deli for an iced coffee (and just an iced coffee), handing over your MasterCard, and then having to buy two f*cking Naked smoothies -- against your will -- to meet the $10 minimum to charge something.

11. Being hungover in Chinatown, and passing six dumpling places in a row -- on a triple digit day in the summer.

12. Trying to act cool in front of a hot girl, on a dinner date in Times Square and Elmo keeps harassing you to take a picture with him.

13. Leaving the club early because you feel sick, actually catching a cab and realizing -- upon smelling the inside of the cab -- you have no chance of holding in this vomit for eight blocks.

14. Trying to walk behind a family of tourists, whose 16-year-old son keeps stopping in the middle of the street... to take pictures of the McDonald's sign.

15. Bringing a girl back to your apartment and getting c*ckblocked -- by a cockroach.

16. Spending $300 for mediocre Knicks tickets -- next to a mother and her infant child, who has a cold--and JR Smith takes a game-winning shot.

17. Lurking around Penn Station by yourself after 2 am, not for fear of your safety, but for fear of seeing someone you went to high school with.

18. Fully grasping that the only free place to sit in Bryant Park, on the nicest day of the year, is next to a couple of teenagers performing grotesque levels of PDA.

19. Being a Mets fan.

20. When someone feels the need to play Ja Rule B-Sides through iPhone speakers, at 7:45 AM, for the entire subway car to hear.

21. Watching your iMessage turn green in between intermittent service in the subway.

22. Realizing the only difference in “how you feel,” after eating at Bareburger and not McDonald's, is regretful that you spent $25 instead of $4 -- for a hamburger and fries.

23. Bringing a change of shirt with you to work, only to sweat through two by the end of your morning commute.

Photo via We Heart It