I don’t care what any of the assholes I live with tell you. I don’t work at a bodega. It’s a health food store. Says right there on the sign: M&A JUICE BAR DELI ORGANIC GROCERY CORP.

Whatever. It’s implied.

In any case, it’s well lit, huge by New York standards, with a battalion of Vitamix blenders right up front—4K worth at least. Plus, we sell every type of rich-people fetish food. Are you in the market for organic, non-sulfur-treated goji berries at eighteen bucks a bag? We got you. Gluten-free, sugar-free, dye free cake for your non-immunized kid’s next birthday? Yep. We even have cake mix with gluten that’s just as expensive because it’s ironic. See, we’re fancy, not at all a bodega, never mind that we’re open twenty-four hours a day, are owned by no-nonsense Koreans, and have a deli cat named Gusto. I’m telling you: Not. A. Bodega.

Still, I just wish the damn health food store were a little closer to my apartment. Especially when the windchill mauls your face-meat to ribbons.

I slide my MetroCard smoothly—quickly—bracing for the clang, that hip check of an expired pass, but the turnstile clicks me through.

The reader flashes EXP 2/13.