Me: 1 Day: O.

On my subway ride home an old, learned–looking man went mmm mmm as I walked on the train. 

I, unlike most women, welcome the vocal advances of elderly men. The way I see, these dudes have seen far more women in their day than the typical 25-year-old douche. They know what and who really matters.  Pure logic here.

We pulled into the West 4th Street station just as “Invisible Touch” reached that a-maze-zing drum solo section that I believe was composed to be jaunted to in black patent leather heels.  I was happy to oblige.

I hop-skipped off the train with an off-line wink to my old man friend and dashed into the mix of people, one of whom I very well might have bumped into, knocked over, fallen in love with, and married.

As I ascended from the F train to the E I heard an unfamiliar sound drowning out Phil’s fading vocals.

It didn’t sound like that weird string instrument that smacks of the soundtrack to Big Bird in China (“Well, what a good thing it would be if a great big American bird went to meet that beautiful Chinese bird! I mean, she could tell me everything about China, and then I could come home and tell everybody here!” – hhmmmm)

And it certainly wasn’t those enviously limber street children performing one of their dances- in-the-round to some hip-hop song I without fail go home and download. I found out about Ne-yo from those geniuses.

Nope– it was piano playing – piano playing coming from a guy PLAYING A PIANO — an actual, full-sized, upright piano sitting a-top very small wheels in the very center of the uptown ACE tracks.

Like that guy over there.  Maybe actually that guy over there…

And with that my day went from successful to piece of crap.

Things I did not do with my Monday include:

• Own a piano. 
• A-fix said piano to a very effective, seemingly hand-made wheely device. 
• Roll that piano from my ground floor apartment or apartment building with a piano-sized elevator to the subway. 
• Lift that not-actually-a-hollow-wooden-box-with-a-very-light-electronic-keyboard-faked-into-it but actual piano down the 18 stairs into the subway (I counted) because it couldn’t fit into the subway elevators (I measured). 
• Play that piano as if I am the love-child of Billy Joel and this 6-year-old Japanese girl I once saw on Star Search and/or Bill Cosby’s Kids Say the Darndest Things.

Had he not ruined my otherwise pride-filled Monday I might have fallen in love with that much better-looking  Geoffrey Rush of a man. I’d have run from the downtown track to the up and surprised him by sitting myself right down for an impromptu duet. 

“Whatta ya’ say?  Shall we treat the crowd to a little Moon River…?” I’d say as passers-by stopped to stare slash donate more money on account of there were two of us now.

We’d play like we’d be playing that song for hundreds of rush hours in dozens of subways throughout this grand city.  Old couples would break into dances with official names.  Young couples would pull out their Blackberries to write quick Tweets about the scene.  The homeless man wailing on the empty paint cans near the subway entrance would switch to a light tap of the handle – triangle-style.  And somewhere in the corner a rouge reporter for the New York Times would snap a single picture on a high-mega-pixel cell phone.

But – alas – all I could remember from my days as a pianist was that haunting melody from the Forrest Gump theme song (four notes played in succession with one hand) and The 12 Days of Christmas (jovial yes, but not sexy) — and, hard as I try, I just can’t work either of those songs into a Sunday Vows section headline…