NTKOG #230: The kind of dewy-eyed monk wannabe who takes a moment to celebrate religious zealotry in all of its occasionally annoying streetside guises.

I am: basically a heathen. Sorry, twelve-years-ago Sunday School teacher!

I am not: at all an enemy of religious dudes. I just have a hard time relating to anyone with unshakable convictions that don’t involve literature or pizza toppings.

The Scene: Across the street from the Boston Public Library, heading home after an evening of writing. On the corner, a man swaddled in a dusty orange robe stood, grinning calmly at pedestrians, holding out a thick book.

When I was eight years old, I mistook my first Hare Krishna for a man dressed as the Little Caesar Pizza mascot. In the intervening years, our relations haven’t much improved.

The pedestrians passing the man stepped around him with that practiced urban disinterest. Yet in the four or five minutes I watched him, his smile only grew warmer with each snub. He was late thirties, perhaps, but younger in face and older in body.

As he gently pushed the book toward each cluster of pedestrians, the skin of his back rippled slightly through the backless robe. From the way the skin hung, you could see his body was once significantly fuller, but now it lay barely stitched onto the bone.

Finally, I walked up to him and caught his eye, smiling hard. If I were him, I’d have been surprised to be approached after all that rejection, but he nodded calmly back like it was inevitable.

“What book are you giving out?” I asked, and he lit up, flipping through a vanity-printed copy of the Bhagavad Vita, peppered with full-gloss illustrations.

He told me about the book, growing more excited with every sentence, clauses getting tangled with one another. Again and again, he flipped back to the pages of full-color illustration, proud like a little boy, as though he’d etched each color plate himself.

“I’ve been meaning to get a copy of the Bhagavad Vida,” I told him, “but I don’t have any cash on me. Let me go get some and I’ll come back.” I headed to the nearby 7-eleven and withdrew some money, getting a twenty broken into fives to cover the ten-dollar book fee.

When I walked back to the man, cash in hand, he actually did look surprised. He handed me the book and I handed him $15 — a little extra, to cover someone who maybe wanted one but couldn’t afford the whole price, I’d like to hope.

As I descended into the subway, I looked back at him in the almost fully faded light. And there he stood as before, getting ignored by the general public but still trying, trying, trying.

The Verdict: So, street-corner religious dudes: not all crazy? Maybe just devoted and trying to reach out to people who want to be reached? This much I can definitely say for the man: he in no way tried to convert me. A fact which — as is so often the case — did more to support his cause in my mind than anything he could have said.

Anyway, I was being honest with the man: I really have been meaning to buy a copy of the Bhagavad Vida, ’cause I figure any book recommended by both Thoreau and the Dalai Lama is good enough for me. I like that now I have a copy with a little memory to it, and with a reminder not to judge people even when they’re putting themselves out there to be judged.

Guys! I’m so excited by the response to the PO Box! I got lots of great comments and emails and, once I have a few days to make logistical calls, expect an email from me. If you don’t know what I’m talking about or aren’t sure if you might be interested (in using it, even if you don’t want to make a donation), then check it out here.

Over on Secret Society of List Addicts, check out a few split-second decisions that tempt me on a daily basis but would undoubtedly ruin my friggin’ life.

NTKOG #229: The kind of self-confident master of her own domain who is good enough, smart enough and, goddamnit, will tell off a jerk who has it coming.

I am: kind of on the meek side. One of those people who convulsively apologizes just for walking in your path or — heaven forfend! — accidentally breathing on you.

I am not: meek because of any great gentleness or sweet nature. Perish the thought. I usually just have a hard time realizing when I have the right to be angry.

The Scene: My apartment, at a quarter past eight, booking it for the bus to work. Because I’ve been waking up early to clean my apartment, I’d spent the past hour or so attacking all the nebulous to-recycle junkmail and magazines that had accumulated in every crevice of my apartment. So I was feeling mighty accomplished to bustle out the door, carrying two full trash bags of rejected papers.

On the way out, ran into my super. “What day is it?” he barked at me.

“Wednesday,” I chirped, positively seething virtue.

“And do you know what day the trash gets collected?” he demanded.

“Uhhh, Wednesday, I think?” Not even nine in the morning and already, in the eyes of the world, I was faltering.

As my super stared at me with scorn and pity, I swear I could see the blood floating up like lava lamp bubbles to the swollen anger-vein in his forehead.

“Then why are you putting your trash out now?! It’s already been picked up! What are you thinking of?!” As he lathered himself up to righteous wrath, he leaned his whole body into the doorway separating me from the staircase — and the world beyond, the one where I needed to get on a damn bus. And then he really launched into it.

A word about my landlord. Dude is, for starters, super-Soviet. And while he’s a generally nice man, because of some combination of my age and gender, he seems to assume my life is the epicenter of some moral depravity the depths of which he can’t even fathom. I mean, me! Sure, I may have cut a few lines of fleur-de-sel in the bathroom once but, dude, I donate to charity! I eat organic! I go to the library every friggin’ day.

Then again, this is the man who blames every broken thing in my apartment — from broken locks to leaky faucets to burned-out lightbulbs — on my “many gentleman visitors”. Like, heads-up, sir? The only man who’s been in my bed this year is PG Wodehouse. And seeing as how he’s been dead for forty years, something tells me he wouldn’t be too interested in my faucets, leaky or otherwise.

After the super had screamed “inconsiderate” twice, I put the garbage bags down and settled in for the long haul. When he started yelling so loudly that two neighbors poked their heads out the door to see what was going on, I pulled out my iPhone and hit the stopwatch.

Five minutes and thirty-eight seconds. For five-minutes and thirty-eight seconds, he accused me of being inconsiderate, ungrateful, lazy, a secret basement-hygiene saboteur.

Normal TKOG would have started apologizing ten seconds in and — in all honesty — probably be out on the street already. Sure, I did nothing wrong, but an apology is cheap and doesn’t hurt anyone. But, dude, is it so very wrong to admit when you’re not in the wrong?

Finally, when he’d reached the greatest swell of his rage, he paused for breath, and I cut in:

“Hey, you know how I pay rent every month? Well, if you want me to keep on doing that, you need to let me go right now so I can get to work.” He sputtered angrily, as I passed, then turned back: “And next time? You should probably calm the fuck down.”

The Verdict: Dude, I think that’s the first time in my life I’ve ever cursed at an actual (non-parent) adult. Crazy. Not that I’d do that part of it again, but the rest? Okay.

A coda to the story: a few days later, I ran into him in the foyer, and he apologized for losing his temper. And normal TKOG would be so thrilled by the spirit of reconciliation that she’d be practically heimleiching out all the apologies stuck in her throat. But stuck to my no-apologies rule.

“I understand and I accept your apology, but I think you’ll find I’m a reasonable person. Next time you want me to do something, please ask nicely.”

Frig yeah! No apologies! Not ever! Except, actually, still probably sometimes! Or even most of the time! But I think I’m going to make more of an effort to apologize when I’ve done something wrong, and not just continue my current path of ceaselessly apologizing just for being alive.

I love you guys. Day after day, through this weird winding project, I never cease to be amazed by the depth of warmth and compassion my readers radiate in the comments section. I was especially touched by some of the reactions to my experience sending birthday cards to inmates.

I was heartened by your thoughts on rehabilitation and the importance of reaching out to a demographic that is so routinely ignored or completely vilified by most of society. I was also distressed to see that so many of you — like me — had wanted to write to inmates but were stymied by the issue of giving out your personal information in order to write back. Honestly, it’s not a good idea to give out your home address to any stranger; right or wrong, it’s even scarier to disclose it within the prison milieu.

So, kittens, AN IDEA.

Many websites suggest renting a PO Box in order to correspond most safely within the prison system. However, if you don’t already have one (and who does, really?), it seems like a big annual expense to undertake for the soul purpose of doing a small, good thing. However.

I made a few calls and found that the fee for a small postbox in Boston is approximately $72/year. This is a significant expense for a dude who’s living paycheck to paycheck, but it occurs to me: split between five or six people, paying $5-6 more each for extra keys, a shared postbox would only cost a few lattes per person. And think of the good it could do.

So here’s what I’m proposing: a postbox rented at some convenient post office in Boston, for the purpose of letting anyone who wants to spend a few minutes a month reaching out to inmates. If you could help me subsidize it with a small donation strictly to the cause, that would be awesome; you could pick up a key and use it at your discretion.

And while it would be physically located here, there are many other things that just one postbox could do. Once I have access to the return address, I’ll post it here. Write or send birthday cards from Montana, from Maine, from Kathmandu, if you so choose.

If the only thing stopping you is fear of disclosing personal information, you’d now have a neutral and safe address block to fill out that upper left-hand corner of the envelope. (If you want to keep up an ongoing correspondence, I can forward you the mail. I’m a secretary, it’s what I do.)

Sites like Write A Prisoner make it incredibly easy to reach out to inmates who are searching for positive human contact to help them stay in touch with society during their period of incarceration. They list upcoming birthdays; they collect information in prisoners’ profiles.

They even let you write your letters via email, which are then printed out and mailed to the prisoners at no expense to you. You could spend just one lunch-break a month jotting short notes and, in that time, touch individual lives in a way that no charitable donation or hour or meditation could ever match.

The way I see it, if reaching out to prisoners is something you might be interested in, there is almost no reason not to do it. Almost no reason. And if lack of a safe return address is the one thing holding you back, then let’s pool together, damnit, and get rid of that one too.

What do you think, guys? You with me?

My apologies, but two posts today to keep us on schedule. For more correspondence-related thoughts, though, please do read today’s post proposing a communal PO Box for writing to inmates.

NTKOG #228: The kind of honestly-trying baby do-gooder who, having put her money where her mouth is, spends a little time for good measure.

I am: trying to do the right thing more often than not, but my attempts are often thwarted by my myriad personal failings. Laziness being chief among them.

I am not: even remotely happy about this.

The Scene: My imaginary Austen-style writing desk, on the heels of my week of sending birthday cards to various prisons. And if you, like I, are imagining one of those old-fashioned roll-top desk numbers with fancy scrolling and various cubbyholes, then may I let it be said: no cubbyhole was bursting more than the one filled with neglected correspondence from one source.

Save The Children.

After an inspiring encounter a few months ago, I started making monthly donations to this excellent charity. And while I’m always pleased to see my meager donation taken out of my monthly bank statement, I’ll admit, I’ve been an absolute beast about opening their correspondence.

Dudes send a lot of letters!

A few months ago, when I finally slashed open the dozens of envelopes they’d sent, it became apparent that they wanted more than my money. They wanted my time. Specifically, they had matched me to a specific donor recipient — an adorable fourth-grade boy in New Mexico — and wanted to make sure I was an active participant in their donor writing campaign.

Just think! they told me, With a letter or two a month, you could form a lasting, life-long relationship with a child who would truly appreciate it! A great idea. I’d get right on it. Tomorrow.

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

After two months, I’d still written nary a word to the little dude, and my normal routine would be to think, “Welp, I’m just an awful person” and recycle the whole reproachful pile of papers. Because after so many months, there were many great excuses not to continue.

Obviously the kid was doing just fine without me. How useful can I be to someone who doesn’t talk about Nabokov or Shakespeare? If I were a kid, I wouldn’t want the burden of writing to an aimless twenty-something. Since I’e waited so long, it would be awkward and maybe even offensive to start now.

But frig excuses and frig habitual self-loathing. Picked up one of the last few sheets of my extra-luxe resume paper and, in my best hand-writing, wrote a one-page note asking him about the desert and his favorite subjects in school, describing my first time seeing snow in Boston, telling him I hoped we could enjoy our future correspondence. Tucked in two sheets of stickers (jungle animals and anthropomorphized fruits & veggies) and, in twenty minutes, dispelled two months of guilt.

The Verdict: Isn’t it funny how simple and non-intimidating the things we fear are, once we actually get them done? And, in related news, I really need to invest in some sort of functional mail-sorter so I can stop inviting at least some of these endless excuses to my TKOG-is-an-awful-person party.\

Updates if and when I hear back from the little dude, though! Slash hopefully pictures of an adorably decorated envelope!

Thank you for your birthday wishes, kittens! Had a glorious day, and looking forward to making 24 the best year of my life — though this one will be hard to beat. For reflections on a less great year (please never let me be 16 again), hop over to Life As A Human to read about the coming of age of those high-school Mean Girls.

NTKOG #237 : The kind of fiscally responsible tech-junkie who, dissatisfied with the current market offerings, frankensteins her own.

I am: trying not to be an evil consumer but, dude, my life requires consumption!

I am not: one for making my own stuff or for splashing out for custom specs. Pret-a-poor-ass-20something, right?

The Scene: The Best Buy at Fenway where, if you go, I’m straight-up telling you to request Mark, who is a god. As I’ve mentioned on here, four days a week I go straight from work to the BPL to write these musings that y’all so kindly tolerate. Unfortunately, this system requires me to tote my 13″ MacBook everywhere in a cramped little messenger bag.

After eight months of the fifteen-pound bag imbalance, my right shoulder has started developing some Quasimodo action. And, I mean, I know I’m not dating right now, but let’s not get ridiculous, right?

As an incredibly generous birthday present, my amazing parents told me to go pick out a lightweight netbook to stave off a grim financial future of semi-weekly chiropractic treatments. While I researched, though, it occurred to me that nothing on the market met my current specifications.

To wit, I needed: something incredibly light; so tiny I can unfold and use it on the bus, yet with a full-size keyboard; perfectly reliable internet access; great battery life.

I neither needed nor wanted: tons of memory (I do everything online with DropBox); a big screen (I type with my eyes closed half the time); lots of RAM (wtf is that? I mean, honestly?); pretty casing and/or accessories; access to ANY FRIGGIN’ WEBSITES other than my blog, ’cause, dude, Facebook is how novels don’t get written.

As I flicked through the options at Best Buy, checked every one out on my trusty iPhone. This one’s $200 more than I want to spend for all the features I hate; the price is right on that one, but reviews malign its internet capability. One by one, I scanned review pages on my iPhone and realized that nowhere in the world existed the perfect mach–

Wait a minute. Wait one gosh darn minute.

“Dude,” I joked to Mark, “what I really want to do is plug a keyboard into my iPhone.”

I expected him to brush it off, but his whole face lit up. “Give me ten minutes to check that!” he shouted over his shoulder, as he flagged down the in-store Apple expert while running simultaneous Google searches on no fewer than three display computers.

After a quarter of an hour of rejecting potential solutions for my un-jailbroken phone, he ran to the Apple accessory shelf and grabbed an iPad keyboard dock.

“This shouldn’t work. Like, it’s not supposed to, but — I wonder.” Before I could even object, he sliced through the shrinkwrap and led me to the customer service counter. Where, I am delighted to report, it worked like a charm.

Thank goodness I had another iPhone to take the picture of this one with. #parodyofmyself Also, for size comparison, the keyboard condom is stolen off of my 13" MacBook. Full-size keyboard, baby.

As he rang me up, explaining the store’s return policy, he thanked me for giving him the opportunity to learn about his product. Uh, that’s what I call customer service.

The Verdict: Guess who just became the owner of a custom $80-dollar Apple netbook that works exactly to her specifications? I’m extremely proud of this, if only because it’s an elegant and slightly witty $80 solution to a $400 problem.

Of course my idea of personal finance slash frugality involves an iPhone. Of course it does.

That said, even though Mark was more the protagonist of this story, I like including it in the NTKOG repertoire because it’s chock full of things I wouldn’t have attempted a year ago today: asking an employee to take time out of their day to help me, standing up for my clear ideas of what I need in a consumer situation, generally seeking input to do something just a little unorthodox. Heck, a year ago I wouldn’t even have been doing enough writing to justify buying a netbook.

So, heads up for those of you whose netbook needs are similar to mine: I’ll bet you can score a 3G iPhone for dead cheap on Craigslist now. Even without data service, just hook that puppy up to WiFi and a keyboard and, bam, instant writers’ oasis.

NTKOG: The kind of frugal, level-headed domestic goddess who takes yo’ Depression-era grandma for a run for housekeeping money.

I am: at least a solid half-level above Microwave Gourmet in the kitchen. Isn’t that enough? No? You beasts!

I am not: secure enough with the essentials of domesticity to even begin considering thrift, frugality or any of those other Laura Ingalls Wilder motivational cross-stitch staples.

The Scene: My postage-stamp Brighton apartment, which is just about big enough to hold one — as long as you don’t have big dreams.

Let me level with you a bit, kittens: Ignore the number in the description up there. I haven’t just done 222 or 250 or even 300 of these NTKOGs — I’ve done more than I can easily count. The problem? Not all of them make good stories. In fact, half of the things I do specifically for this blog end up getting scrapped because there just isn’t 500 words of content in ‘em.

I’ve taken to thinking of these failed NTKOGs as didn’t-kill-me’s. ’cause that’s all there really is to say. Wore a too-short skirt work? Didn’t kill me. Told off a homeless dude for sticking his arm in my shirt up to the elbow? Didn’t kill me. Sat up until 3am drinking boxed wine on the curb with a Jordanian immigrant? Well, you get the message.

Unsurprisingly, many of these didn’t-kill-me’s are stories that take place in the privacy of my own apartment, where I try day by day to take on the non-glamorous task of finally becoming an adult. Still, in the spirit of frugality (and saving you having to read a post every single day ’til August 23), let us indulge for a moment in a compost heap of domestic-themed NTKOGs.

NTKOG #224: Washing and re-using various disposable household goods. This one was brought on by my year-long spurning of paper towels. Heck, if I can save a tree or two, how many casualties could I save in the plastic rainforest?

Cue many weeks of rinsing and reusing plastic cutlery at work, using old wine bottles as water carafes (’till they crowded out my fridge, that is — whoops), and painstakingly washing and drying my old Ziploc bags.

The Verdict: Oh man, this made me feel like the special guest star of a Hoarders prequel. With the exception of the wine bottles, which felt a bit roguish and debonair, it’s just — it’s just so much effort to save something that costs mere pennies. Plus, I’m not convinced it’s environmentally useful, what with the massive water consumption it entails. Voting this one a thumbs-down with a double serving of, dude, I am not my grandmother. (Which is probably a good thing, or else my fridge would be too crammed with decades-expired cans of lard to have room for wine in the first place.)

NTKOG #225: Eating expired food. See what I mean about the non-glamorous thing?

Let me be straight with you: I’m such a paranoid culinary princess that I can’t even eat leftovers more than 24 hours later. And the second we approach the expiry month of a food product? See ya.

Nonetheless, conquered my revulsion by working through two half-gallon bottles of month-expired soy milk. Which, unlike moo milk, tasted exactly the same as they did the day I bought them.

Later, growing riskier, I cleaned out my seriously limp crisper drawer into a pot of chili that tasted — what’d'ya know?! — exactly like my usual recipe. But my craving for zombified produce reached its pinnacle when I prepared and ate, of my own free will, banana-nut dinosaur muffins out of these:

I generally have a rule against foods that can be described as "sludgey," but even three weeks old, organic bananas are too $$$ to throw away.

The Verdict: The first didn’t-kill-me I’ve been delighted and surprised to find actually. didn’t. kill me.

NTKOG #226: The kind of gender-neutralized toolbelt-wielding lady who fearlessly handywomans her own environs. By which I mean. I scraped and re-grouted the crusty tiles in my bathroom. For fun.

The Verdict: Okay, this one actually did almost kill me. Because my Roomba was running in the other rooms I, like an idiot, closed myself in the bathroom for three hours with the caulking solution, then hyperventilated and passed out very briefly in the bathtub. Which is a lot funnier in retrospect than it was at the time.

Oh whatever. Like Bob Vila never had a bloopers reel…

Meta-Verdict: One doesn’t like to brag but — this guy? Totally not dead yet. No, no, hold your applause.

Correction: I might have died of cuteness after eating these.

NTKOG #223: The kind of jumpsuit-chaser who, not content with her current social milieu, jumps at the chance to add inmates to the mix.

I am: not sure I know anyone who’s ever been in prison. Primarily because I haven’t stayed in touch with anyone from high school.

I am not: well-acquainted with prisoners’ rights or psychology. Heck, I don’t even watch movies that involve prisons.

The Scene: My local CVS, where I picked up five pleasant by generic birthday cards. At the check-out aisle, the clerk asked if I had a lot of friends. “Not — not at all, actually.”

Afterwards, went online to Write A Prisoner. Y’know, as one generally does after visiting the stationery store.

A little background here: senior year of college, I got obsessed with the idea of becoming pen pals with Erik Menendez. It stemmed from a Radar article that was running the rounds, about a pop culture journalist, Bill Geerhart, who pretended to be his eight-year-old self, writing to famous Death Row inmates for advice about the kinds of problems eight-year-olds have. (Should I drop out of school? Why do I have to clean my room? Who would win: a shark or a T-Rex? That sort of thing.)

In hopes of getting his story, he also included a self-addressed stamped envelope and stationery for all of his correspondents. A number of them wrote back, including Erik Menendez who, with elegant penmanship, wrote something along the lines of: “Thank you for your letter, but next time there is no need to send paper or a stamp or that sort of thing,” before pouring out a thoughtful and amazingly sweet four-page letter.

I don’t know what it was, but that sentence made me cry. In fact, it still makes my eyes prickle. Maybe because it was so considerate, so hopeful, completely oblivious to the fact that he was being manipulated for a smarmy media piece.

When I first proposed writing to Menendez, Justice and another friend of ours vehemently dissuaded me — for, I’ll admit, the very practical reason that disclosing my name and address to a felon might be classified as a Very Bad Idea.

But while they were dissuading me, the other friend told me: “They’re just inmates. If you really want to do something nice, do it for someone who deserves it.”

Even all these years later, I still find that thought upsetting. It seems so … unforgiving.

So, after I bought the cards, I checked Write a Prisoner and found five inmates who shared my birthday and sent them a card. God knows I’ve had a few horrible birthdays, but never in the solitary-confinement class. Everyone deserves a little recognition on their birthday and no matter what awful things I might have done or might still do in this world, I know I wouldn’t want anyone to forget that small human fact.

The Verdict: To anyone who might be concerned, I did what I could about taking precautions. I used a modified form of my name (full first name + middle name) and a very non-specific address — which will, sadly, preclude people writing back. It was hard, actually, finding five profiles that didn’t begin “Hey ladies!”. Although one was by a man only a few years older than me, who quoted The Odyssey and talked simply and seriously about how he was looking to continue his self-education. I wrote him with my real address.

I’m not worried, because he doesn’t get out until 2028. I don’t know what he’s in for. I didn’t have the heart to look.

Now I’m looking into programs through local churches to actually write and receive responses from people without disclosing my address. It feels wrong not to try this. I call myself a writer because I cherish the absurd notion that I might be able to one day string a few words together in a way that changes someone’s life for the better. What if there’s someone out there who really needs a few considerate words? Wouldn’t I be a terrible phony if I didn’t at least try?

You can mock me or call me crazy all you want in the comments section. Doing this was my birthday present to myself. (Well, that, and about a million drinks in New York, which I’m enjoying even as we speak. A girl can’t strive for personal enlightenment all the time.)

NTKOG #222: The kind of excessively perky meddler who goes around heckling slash jekylling other people’s life choices because she simply can’t bear to leave her opinions unheard.

I am: constitutionally incapable of not staring at people in public, running wry mental narration over the actions I observe.

I am not: doing it because I think I’m better than everyone — or even anyone, really — but because I’m genuinely curious about the thousand worlds inside of us that strangers never get to see.

The Scene: Public thoroughfares and hubs of commerce the whole city over, where I took it upon myself to become a Public Validation Station. At least as much as I could without getting beat up. Because it occurs to me: some poor, deprived people out there don’t have blogs where scores of strangers can tell them they’re not crazy for drinking alone in the bath, or lovingly (and fairly) chastise them for dumping gin in their eyeballs. Some people probably don’t get told they’re great all that often, or at least not often enough. And surely I can’t let that kind of injustice stand!

As I looked for victims — er, recipients! — of external validation, I realized how very many opportunities there are to say something nice instead of sticking with the tried-and-true, y’know, nothing. I complimented women on their sundresses (I do this anyway), flashed enthusiastic thumbs-ups to humidity-braving joggers, held cashiers’ and clerks’ eyes while I told them just what exactly they were doing right. Heck, I waited twenty minutes at a TJ Maxx just to tell a manager that one of her employees was doing a particularly good job restocking the shelves.

And no one can really know how much good these things do. Maybe they’re an annoyance, maybe they come at a good moment — all I can tell you is that they didn’t seem to hurt anyone. People across the board smiled and said thank you. A few people stopped to talk to me a bit, about the weather, or what kind of day they were having.

I like it. It won’t realign the path of the planets, sure, but it’s simple and it’s nice. Of these countless interactions, though, there’s one that stands out:

The Whole Foods in Brighton, buying cereal and organic toothpaste because, dude, this girl knows how to party. As I waited at the check-out lane, the healthy-mommy shopper ahead of me clicked quickly through the credit card machine — then stared at the clerk with rapidly souring confusion when she wasn’t rewarded with the whine of a printing receipt.

“You accidentally hit cancel,” he explained, then, as she began to complain, “No, don’t worry about it. The screens look exactly alike. I’d guess that 30% of people do this. It’s a silly system; it happens all the time.”

And it’s impossible to convey in just words, but you know how some people possess that rare gift of radiance? Something about this guy — he was as vast and placid as a country pond reflecting the sunrise. The immortal guru of the express lane.

After he’d apologized, her face slowly unpinched, and she even cracked a tired smile as she wheeled her cart to the parking lot.

When I resumed my place in the line, I felt suddenly shy. Who was I to intrude on his job, even if it was just to tell him he’d done it admirably? But as I packed my groceries into my messenger bag, smiled up, “Hey, I like how happy you are. I mean, I think you made that woman’s day better just because she made that little mistake.”

“Thanks,” he said, and smiled big but kind of pitying, like why wouldn’t someone dispense peace of mind along with change for a twenty-dollar bill.

The Verdict: I think — I think I just met an honest-to-god guru. The kind of guy who’s so nice that he doesn’t even realize that niceness is an exceptional habit in the modern world. As I never seem to stop learning during this project, not only is it nice to be nice, but it often takes less energy than being negative or even than being neutral.

Man, though, Whole Foods Guru, he’s just a whole different level. He reminded me what I’m striving for: to one day — maybe not in this lifetime or the next, but one day – make the world a better place not by doing, but by simply being.

ITALICS MONSTER! Two things: 1) Cool, so there’ll definitely be some sort of little party in Boston after my NTKOG year is over. Details forthcoming, my parents’ schedules pending. 2) Forgive the recent proliferation of ads (yes, even you RSS readers): I’m just trying everything for a week to see which earns me the most, after which, in the words of Highlander, there can only be one.

NTKOG 221: The kind of sanctimonious busybody who, observing your behavior isn’t up to her purse-lipped par, grabs you by the elbow and tells you how to live.

I am: annoyed by nothing in the world quite so much as old people who, seeing me on the street, descend from the guru-mountain of senescence to lecture me about my clothes, my hair, my body — whatever pops into their minds.

I am not: even always the best judge of my behavior, let alone anyone else’s.

The Scene: The Boston Public Library, a quarter of an hour before closing time. I was browsing the W’s fiction shelf for some nighttime reading, when a shriek ricocheted through the marble foyer.

“Help me! Help! Make her stop!” a teenage girl screamed.

A series of ominous thumps, then a deep women’s voice, cracking with panic, cried out: “Call the police! Call an ambulance! Goddamnit, call somebody!”

Her voice physically dragged me across ten feet of carpeting and into the foyer, where a few patrons stood frozen at the check-out line and half a dozen library employees clustered in an anxious knot.

On the outside of one of the big glass doors, a woman — mid-forties but with an older face — wrestled a skinny teen girl against the glass. The girl twisted herself around, trying to land a vicious elbow into the woman’s face, letting out an animal wail.

Somehow, the women hooked her left ankle into one of the next set of doors and dragged it open enough to scream into the library again: “Call a fucking ambulance! It’s my daughter. She stole my phone. She just got out of the hospital.”

“Don’t fucking touch me!” the girl screeched. “I’ve never seen this woman before in my life!” The rest was lost in sobs.

And maybe it was the scared resignation in the woman’s voice, or the way she was ripping her body in an attempt to restrain the girl while seeking help, but something told me this was indeed a mother, dealing with only the latest episode in a long, sad battle with her daughter’s mental illness. It’s just a guess, mind you. But if you were there, I think you’d agree it’s a good one.

After two or three more minutes of wrestling and wailing, the head security guard stepped outside. “Has someone helped you?” he boomed.

“No. I keep asking. I’ve asked five fucking times for an ambulance! I took her out of the hospital and it was a mistake — she needs to go back right now.”

The guard paced back to the security desk in quick, measured steps, and — finally — called the proper autorities. As he started describing the situation to the dispatcher, I checked out my book and slinked out of the library.

Except, out on the street, I was the only person moving. There must have been three dozen pedestrians gawking at the specacles — eyes wide, whispering to each other out of the corners of their mouths, all but nursing bowls of Jiffy Pop.

And, dude, something inside of me snapped.

“Hey,” I broke into a coven of after-work PR blondes. “They called the cops. You should probably keep walking — all these people can’t be helping the situation.”

One of the blondes made a moue of disgust, but they shifted.

One by one, ran up to the groups of goggling pedestrians. “Dude, there’s nothing to see there. It’s none of your business.”

Some people moved away; some stayed, staring, smiling, speculating on the scene with schadenfreudistic glee. Then, out of the corner of my eye, a glint of iPhone casing.

Twenty feet from the scene, a crew of high-school boys stood, one training his phone on the whole conflict.

“Are you taping this?!” I spat. “What, are you going to put it on YouTube?”

“Come on,” the ringleader grinned. “It’s hilarious.”

And there were many things I wanted to do. I wanted to swipe the phone from his hand and smash it to the ground. I wanted to click through his contacts and call his mother, tell him what her son was out doing. I wanted to smack his smug face until he learned the difference between suffering and entertainment. But of course I couldn’t do any of those things — not with the cops already on their way. So, I did the only thing I could do.

I danced.

Ducked into the path of his iPhone video until I was obscuring the entire frame, then danced my spastic ass off. Where he swiveled, I followed instantly; where he tried to evade, I only took up more space; where he ran, I followed. I blocked out every trace of the two women’s struggle until, finally, he gave up.

“Crazy bitch,” he snarled. Which tells me two things. First, this kid obviously doesn’t appreciate fine dance. And second, that he might have a bigger lesson to learn about what is and what isn’t entertainment.

The Verdict: Not sure how sold I am on this one. On the one hand, it’s the type of thing I feel myself increasingly drawn to do these days, yet lack the commitment (and willingness to look like a total ass) to actually pull off.

On the other, it doesn’t escape me that it might be a trifle hypocritical. After all, who am I to unilaterally declare what is and is not a worthy public spectacle? Besides, to be perfectly honest, I know I would have been staring away if I were that teenager. So what about a year ago? Or six months ago? Or yesterday?

Making other people’s ethical decisions for them: fraught. Guerrilla-dancing in other people’s YouTube-bound videos: hilarious. Let’s go ahead and call this one a draw.