CREAMPUFF CATASTROPHE! on the UES - 3/6/8

Darcy Savat is a dear, sweet friend, one of the first new friends I made & still have, upon my return to NYC in 2003. She now lives on the Upper East Side with her MAD Magazine staff writer boyfriend Dave, in a swank pad on the 5th floor of a walkup on E 92nd btwn 1st and 2nd avenues. She's a very serious person when it comes to work (Development at MTV but hopefully not much longer) and a very silly person when not at work. She also speaks in a whimsical little-girl-type voice that always manages to express amazement and wonder at some of the most mundane scenes around the city, while not being annoying or grating in the least. A truly wondrous, wonderful human being. We always have ridiculous fun whenever we're out. And I hadn't seen her since November and I missed her dearly. So we planned a dinner-date: delicious & cheap sushi near her pad, and lots of catching up & gossip.

Following the sushi, the craving for sweets hit and hit hard. Cupcakes in particular, but any homebaked cookie/or/cake-type thing would suffice. And this is the Upper East Side . . . they have everything up here! So at a quarter to 10 we set off for cupcakery. The first bakery was pulling down the gates as we approached. I dropped onto my knees on the sidewalk, raised my fists to the air, and proclaimed to the heavens "CUUUPPCAAAKKEESSS!" The young buck drawing the gates grinned and remarked "We've been closed for an hour, dude." I told him an hour ago we were shoving sushi down our gullets. He said try the French place around the corner. We did, to no avail. A third bakery was also closed. At this point, the need for any kind of sweet-cake-type-product-or-anything was unavoidable. So Darcy casually remarks "Well, there's a creampuff place around the corner that-a-way. . ."
Creampuffs?!? Why are we wasting our time with cupcakes when we could be creampuffing our way off this mortal coil? "Cupcakes sink to the bottom of your stone like a stomach, Darcy dear. Let's trip the light fantastic with some creampuffs!!" I hollered at the poor girl. So we hustle-muscle to the creampuff joint (actually a coffee/creampuff place called Choux Coffee on 1st Avenue nr 86th Street) and arrived to a locked door. No good. Two latina teenage employs are sweeping the creampuff crumbs off the floor. There is a fully loaded bag of creampuffs tied up and sitting on the glass counter, ready for the trash.I knock on the door. The girls say "We're closed." I say "I know. I want that bag of creampuffs." Darcy, behind me, shrieks "GIVE US THE CREAMPUFFS!" The following interaction ensues, across the closed, locked glass door of Choux Coffee and us on the sidewalk:

Me: We want those creampuffs!
Darcy: GIVE US THOSE CREAMPUFFS!
Employ 1: I cant.
Me: But they're for the trash, right?
Employ 1: Right.
Me: So give us the creampuffs.
Darcy: WE WANT THE CREAMPUFFS!
Employ 1: But I'd get in trouble with the manager.
Me: Is the manager around?
Employ 1: No.
Me: And those are just going to be thrown out, right?
Employ 1: Right.
Me: So give us the creampuffs.
Darcy: WE NEED THOSE CREAMPUFFS!
Employ 1: But there's no cream in them.
Me: We dont care. We want those creampuffs.
Darcy: WE NEED THOSE CREAMPUFFS!
Employ 1: I dunno.
Me: Look. (Pulls $5 bill from wallet) Look. I'm going to leave this five dollar bill right here (places five dollar bill sticking out of the Come And Eat Creampuffs stand-up sign parked right outside entrance) as a tip for whomever comes and takes it. And we're just going to stand outside this storefront, waiting for a bus. And we hope that somehow, someone just happens to leave a plastic bag filled with cream-less creampuffs at our feet, for the trash, while we're waiting for the bus, and the five dollars just disappear. That's what we're going to do, and we hope that you get the drift and just place those creampuffs outside for the trash. That's what we hope happens, and we hope you hope it happens too.
(Employ 2 just looks on incredulously as this whole scene unfolds. Employ 1 walks around behind the counter to talk to Employ 2. Me and Darcy take three steps towards the curb and pretend to wait for a bus. As we're waiting, we hear the sound of a door unlocking and sneakers hitting the pavement. All of a sudden there's a plastic bag at out feet. We ignore it. We hear the door close behind us. We pickup the plastic bag filled with creamless creampuffs and turn to walk away. I notice that the $5 bill is missing from the sign. We make off like bandits, calm, cool, collected bandits, with a plastic bag stuffed with creampuffs between us. )

END SCENE.

We then proceed to the local Gristede's, buy two cans of Redi-Whip Whipped Cream (one heavy cream, one chocolate) and a box of strawberries, sit down on some wooden pallets outside the supermarket next to an outrageously enormous plexiglass pear, and proceed to DIY our own goddamn creampuffs. Its the most delicious thing in the whole Upper East Side. Passersby are eyeing our DIYpuffs with envy and delight. We laugh and laugh and stuff our face with puffs.

(no camera was on hand to document our creampuff catastrophe, but these pix were shot by my photographer roommate Valeria Forster.)