So. Night begins like any other night at around 5:30. We (me, Min, Erik, Jill) take the train, get off, and call up Amanda who’s already down at South Street. We meet her at 5th and South, and have dinner at some Kosher place which was strongly recommended by Erik. Amanda, unfortunately, can’t stay the whole evening, and has to return to her parent’s office which is on Washington Ave, in some small Asian district (which I realize now is not THE ChinaTown, because that’s in the entirely opposite direction) about seven to eight blocks from where we have dinner. Amanda says that she has to head back at around 7:45ish, so we decide to escort her. Which we do. So, we get to Washington Ave. – and on the corner of the street is a copy machine, in two pieces, clearly broken. We look at it, and jokingly talk about taking it with us, and carry on, and continue to escort Amanda who is a block away. We drop her off, and head back the way we came – and pass the copy machine again.
We look at it again, and jokingly suggest taking it home, until we finally decide “Well, why not?” So, we’re experimenting with the two pieces, until we realize that the combined weight of the two of them is somewhere in the vicinity of 300 POUNDS. However, we then notice that one of the pieces has wheels on the bottom, and that the other piece can easily be stacked on top of the other. So, we stack, and we push, a 300 pound copy machine, down some shady street in the middle of Philadelphia on New Year’s Eve. We decide that the best option would be to drop it off somewhere on Market Street (which is maybe 15-20 blocks away) so we can pick it up later and try to bring it back with us. So, we start heading on that direction, until I remember that I have on me my DV video camera. So Erik, ever the video man, and I, the wannabe-in-my-spare-time video man, decide that we should tape ourselves pushing this copy machine around Philadelphia. So, I start off filming, filming Min, Jill, and Erik as they pant and sweat, pushing the wheeled copy machine up handicapped ramps, over rough and bumpy sidewalks, and across streets teeming with cars, until we get to South Street. Anyone familiar with South Street knows that it is almost always crowded with people, and it was crowded that much more since it was New Year’s Eve.
So, there we were, four kids, a camera, and a copy machine, walking though South Street, past Condom Kingdom, past bewildered but powerless cops (after all, there is no anti-copy-machine ordinance in Philly), and wildly amused spectators. At one point, I switch places with Erik and he takes over the camera, being so much more comfortable and at ease behind it, and I commence panting and sweating, etc; while all the while we continue to wish “Happy New Year!” to onlookers. Somewhere along the way, we decided that we went that far; we might as well take the copy machine to Penn’s Landing, and have the copy machine (which we named “Phillis Sharp”, since we were in Philly and it was a Sharp brand machine) “watch” the fireworks with us (on film, of course). The walk to Penn’s Landing is a reasonable distance to begin with, but with a copy machine it was especially interesting. However, we decided that it was our duty to do it; it was, after all, “For the Cause!” (which is a complicated inside joke which I will not get into here). Along the way, numerous people walked up to us to verify that we were, indeed, pushing a copy machine; many people (nearly a dozen, in fact) asked if they could photocopy their ass on our machine; while many others (many in varying states of drunkenness) confused it for various other items: “Ooo, look at that Toaster!” “Is that a fax machine?” “What have you got in there, a Keg?” “Mmmm, can I have some cake?”
Somewhere along the way, some white monk of sorts stopped us and dropped two Hindi books for each of us on top of the copying machine, and asked for “donations” for the book, so, we figured, why not. Later on, many people, seeing the books on top of the machine, confused the machine for a selling table and the books for our wares, and asked to buy them. One man (and I’m sure a few others who weren’t quite as confrontational) questioned us to make sure we weren’t carrying a bomb inside the machine, and we convinced him that we were not. Many excited (and often drunk) people exclaimed, in wonder, “COPY MACHINE! YEAH! WHOO!” which was amusing too. (One belligerent drunk, after the fireworks, got up in my face, rather violently, and insisted that we were not allowed to cross the street until his “Limo came,” and he watched very carefully to make sure that we didn’t cross – more details on him in a bit). By working “for the cause”, we managed to get the copy machine across a six-lane highway (granted, it was at an intersection with a light, but that’s still quite a feat).
So anywho, we finally got to Penn’s Landing, and wheeled Phillis (heh) to a rather high vantage point so we could all watch the fireworks together. Unfortunately, we got to Penn’s Landing before 10:30, and having a 300 pound copy machine didn’t leave us with many options, so we were forced to basically sit and wait, as we encircled Phillis in a ritual dance (accompanied by drum players) and took him (oy, I’ve assigned it a gender now) around in circles, drawing lovely attention to ourselves all the while. We got food at a vendor, and brought Phillis with us. Interestingly enough, many people confused Min, who looked like a North Korean, and I, with crazy, unruly hair, for terrorists, and the fact that we were standing next to a big electronic device (while Erik was in line for the vendor getting us food) didn’t help our case, but it was so very amusing, nevertheless. At one point, we drew the attention of a couple of young men from Sweden. Now, Jill and Min (but Jill to a lesser degree) are both “Swedophiles”, so, of course, a lovely conversation ensued, with one of them in particular who was either very attracted to Jill or Erik (mmm, ambiguity...). So, the fireworks finally happened at midnight, and Phillis, of course, enjoyed them immensely, and many people around us greatly enjoyed this copy machine that appeared to come out of nowhere. (Of course, there were a few people who decided to follow us on our entire journey, or, at least, saw us a couple of times at various locations during the evening, and who knew the nature of our quest.)
After the fireworks, we realized that we simply could not abandon it, not after going that far, and we were determined to bring it home. However, we decided that if we were the first to leave, we’d be trampled by other people, so we decided to leave after most people left. So, while waiting, we left the copy machine in a rather crowded area, and then slowly backed away, so we wouldn’t look like it belonged to us. The reactions of many people were extremely hilarious: children looking curiously inside and parents pulling them away; people attempting to photocopy their ass; people clearly bewildered at the presence of this copy machine, now without a clear set of owners; and so forth. Once that was done, we finally decide to leave, only, on our way out, we come across the aforementioned belligerent drunk who cut us off from our shortest route. So, we were forced to take a rather long detour, which involved going down a cobblestone sidewalk and road. Now, it’s a wonder that Phillis survived, fully intact, as long as he did, considering the miles we pushed him around, the six-lane highway, the constant ramps and bumps, etc. But the cobblestones were too much, and he began to fall apart, much to our dismay. However, we decided to keep going, for we would not abandon poor Phillis so easily.
Unfortunately, our state with the copy machine simply got worse. We had counted on bringing it into an elevator that would take us down to the Blue Line; unfortunately, it turns out it stopped running by the time we finally got there. We had a good chance of getting him to the Market East station, which was still running; however, that was eleven blocks away on eleventh street (we were at the water front). But, we tried, valiantly, breaking record speeds with Phillis and the smoothest sidewalks we had encountered yet. Unfortunately, the damage done by the cobblestones earlier could not be undone, and Phillis was, indeed, slowly but surely fading from this world. On sixth street, a screw in the bottom forced us to stop using the wheels, and we were forced to abandon the bottom half. I figured that we could go just as fast carrying the top half (which was cooler, anyway) as we were going with the wheeled bottom half, since we’d be losing half of the machine. Unfortunately, we lost the wheeled and lighter half, leaving us with a heavier top half (amounting to perhaps 175-250 pounds). But, we tried to carry it anyway, taking rather long rest stops every few hundred feet. Unfortunately, our efforts were in vain; we were ultimately forced to abandon Phillis to a cruel world, for we could not bring him with us. To make matters worse, our straining attempts caused us to miss the last train out, so we had to end up taking a taxi.
Battered and worn, it would appear as though we failed in our cause. However, we still retain memories of a night that may very well be “told to our grandchildren” (as I told one stranger who asked us why the hell we were doing this) and a video tape which chronicles most of our night. So, despite the loss of Phillis (and I will remember him as that for evermore, not as a mere copy machine), the night pretty much began, lasted, and ended on a high note, and was, indeed, my greatest New Year’s Eve ever. It was even topped off with desert and political discussion with Erik at Minella’s, which always delights me.
Mmmmm.
And I think this is already much too long. I think I started writing this at around 4:00, and it is now 5:00 (I wrote this in Microsoft Word, first, to ensure that I wouldn’t lose it due to technical error – and btw, I just noticed that this tome is just a little shy of 2000 words, jeesh). So, I shall stop.
By the way, Jill, Min, and Erik: I wish to apologize for any inevitable discrepancies which may occur in this in advance. They were not done with the intent of doing any harm.
So, good night, all, and Happy New Year!