METROPOLITAN DIARY: Emergency quarters

A tale of two hot dog vendors claims the top spot in this year’s best Metropolitan Diary item, outpolling four other favorites. Here is one of the finalists.

By THE NEW YORK TIMES Dear Diary:

Every morning before I left for school, my mother would hand me an emergency quarter. This was back when cellphones were a luxury and you couldn’t turn a corner in New York without seeing a pay phone.

“Only use this if you absolutely must,” she said as I slipped the coin into my pocket, where it would sit next to the one she had given me the day before.

I spent Fridays after school in a small barbershop in Corona, Queens, either getting a haircut myself or accompanying a friend who was getting one. Every Friday, an older Dominican man would walk into the shop pulling a red-and-white camping cooler.

Inside the cooler was a black bag. Inside the bag was what I had looked forward to all week.

The smell of fried dough would overwhelm the combined scent of talcum powder, Barbicide and bay rum that had lingered in the air through the day. A well-trained nose could also pick up the scent of onions, olives and seasoned ground beef. Chicken, too, if the man had any left.

“Empanadas, one dollar and twenty-five,” he would bellow as the barbers continued cutting hair without flinching.

Every Friday, I would dig deep into my pocket and fish around for five quarters, one for every day of the week.

This is as good an emergency as anything, I would think to myself before making my request.

“You have any chicken left?”

— Carlos Matias

Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.