The New York Times-20080128-Metropolitan Diary

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Metropolitan Diary

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DEAR DIARY:

At a recent personnel committee meeting of our West Side co-op, the building's super and the committee members were discussing whether an employee should be suspended for an apparent lie he had told about a misplaced package.

Knowing this employee quite well, I mentioned to the super that I did not think a suspension was necessary, since this employee had a very harsh superego and he had suffered enough with his own guilt over the weekend.

A few days later the super phoned and asked me if I, as a practicing psychoanalyst, could recommend something that he could read about the superego. I suggested Freud's Ego and the Id.

Oh no, he said, I need something simpler. My response was: You are one of the smartest supers in New York. I know you'll understand it.

So for Christmas I handed him an envelope with his usual cash bonus, accompanied by a gift-wrapped copy of Freud's Ego and the Id.

A day later, I ran into the super in the lobby and he greeted me with a hug and a huge smile. He told me he was eager to begin reading Freud and discussing the id, ego and superego with me.

Louise Fay-Bergman

Dear Diary:

On a cold winter day, my husband and I checked our coats in the lockers at the Vivian Beaumont Theater and proceeded to our seats. The woman sitting next to us stood to allow us to pass, and realized that she still had her coat, scarf and hat on her lap.

Since there were about five minutes until curtain time, she decided to run out to the lockers, and said to me, Please watch my bag.

O.K., I said, but how do you know that I'm honest?

Without missing a beat, the person in front of us who had heard the exchange said, Because she asked me to watch you! Eileen Marech

Dear Diary:

When my son, who lives in New Orleans, brought his wife and 3 1/2-year-old son to New York recently, the boy was thrilled to see snow for the first time.

But that thrill was superseded by the sight of a huge snowplow making its way up Madison Avenue.

Since trucks and huge vehicles are his present fascination, he vigorously waved to the plow operator, his enthusiasm quite clear. He had seen snowplows only in books.

He and his family, talking about this event as they slowly walked up the avenue, were most surprised when the snowplow appeared again and came to a stop right near them.

More waving, and then the plow operator stepped down from his perch, picked up the little boy and sat him on the plow for a brief moment, providing an experience in friendly New York City that he will never forget.

Gloria R. Greenbaum

Dear Diary:

Performers leaving the stage door of Broadway theaters are often approached by autograph seekers waiting on the sidewalk.

Although I haven't appeared in a Broadway show for a number of years, the other night, as I walked down 45th Street after seeing a play, a woman came up to me, her autograph book in hand, and asked, Excuse me, but aren't you somebody?

Lenka Peterson

Dear Diary:

One day not too long ago, at dusk, I was out with my crew setting up for a survey on Bond Street in NoHo. We were using a Leica 3D high-definition laser scanner, a very high-tech piece of equipment, to conduct a survey of the street and one particular building.

When the scanner runs at night, we could be mistakenly thought of as the producers of an impromptu light show, because the continuous beams of light shooting from the laser are distinctly visible and their erratic pattern makes a pretty interesting sight. We commonly attract an audience.

I had just positioned the scanner so that was it was set to take the height of the building when I realized that we did not have an inclinometer (a hand-held instrument that measures vertical slope).

The only folks who tend to carry these gadgets are surveyors and your hard-core mountaineer -- the kind of individual who climbs Denali after taking a measurement.

I turned to my assistant and told him to make a note to order another inclinometer.

A passing pedestrian overhearing this instruction helpfully asked, Do you need an inclinometer? and volunteered one from his knapsack. Lemuel Morrison

Dear Diary:

Overheard at Saks Fifth Avenue, lunchtime, down escalator.

Mother and little boy, about 3 years old.

Little boy: Let's go to Bloomingdale's. We do better there.

Rochelle C. Cheifetz

Observations for this column may be sent to Metropolitan Diary at [email protected] or to The New York Times, 620 Eighth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10018. Please include your name, mailing address and daytime telephone number; upon request, names may be withheld in print. Submissions become the property of The Times and cannot be returned. They may be edited, and may be republished in all media.

[Illustration]DRAWING (DRAWING BY LARS LEETARU)