Donn's Best of Boston (A Satire)

My favorite Boston weekly newspaper recently ran their annual "Best of Boston" issue. I enjoy these "best of" things for a few reasons. 1) They're typically presented in list form, and I like lists. 2) Although they tend to regurgitate the same things year after year, they use delicious adjectives like "velvety", "blissful", and "baby-fresh". And 3) They remind me that there are still things to like about Boston, despite being a Boston Tea Party-Pooper.

So all of this inspired me to create my own "Best of Boston" list. It is, of course, strictly satirical and meant to be taken with a grain of salt. Translation: "Please don't maim me when I leave the house tomorrow, Die-Hard Bostonians."

Best Place to Have a Nervous Breakdown - Park Street Station/MBTA Green Line. It is simply amazing to me that there is not a city-employed psychiatrist on hand at the Green Line platform in the Park Street subway station. This place is utter chaos, no matter if it's the height of rush hour or the small hours of the evening. Let me paint a picture of this scene for you. Imagine, if you will, thousands of angry people pushing their way up a single flight of tiny stairs. Then imagine all of them boarding a train with you. Bear in mind that Green Line trains are smaller than regular trains; they are typically only four cars. No one would conceive of waiting for the next train, so it is inevitable that everyone crams into the too-few sardine-cans-on-wheels. You'll have the dreadlocked king of B.O. breathing on your neck, an arrogant business-suited prick on his cellphone on your left, a squat Hispanic woman with four screaming children on your right, and a totally lost Chinese woman pressed into your chest as she swings a bag of bloody chicken parts into your crotch. This is a typical day on the Green Line. Sadly, serotonin reuptake inhibitors are not included in the cost of the fare.

Best Place to See Cute, Friendly Hippies - Whole Foods. I've been to many of the Whole Foods stores in the Greater Boston area, and I am always pleased with the attractive, courteous hippies who work there. Although they mostly sell earthy-crunchy stuff and, in the words of my mother-in-law, "things that have only been touched by yellow butterflies", I'm consistently happy when being cashiered by a pierced and tattooed hottie with a sleepy, stony attitude. It justifies purchasing my $12 pink Peruvian artichoke.

Best Place to Get Flattened By an Automobile - Crossing Broadway outside the Cambridge Marriott. Screw bungee jumping or skydiving. If you really want to live dangerously, just try crossing the street on the Broadway side of the Cambridge Marriott. There is a pedestrian-friendly button on either side of the crosswalk that, when pressed, creates a strobe of yellow lights instructing drivers to stop and yield. But of course, no one ever stops, yields, or even slows down, no matter how many people are trying to cross or where they might be in the intersection. It is a point of pride for Boston drivers that they never, EVER give a fellow citizen a break, and they would rather smoosh you with their car than let you cross the street. Their rationale, I'm sure, is rather simple: If I flatten that old lady with the grocery cart, then that's one less person who will be trying to cross the street tomorrow.

Best Place to Buy Sour Patch Kids - Hidden Sweets, Cambridge. You don't know how elated I was when I learned, upon moving to Boston, that the delicious gummy sour candies known as Sour Patch Kids are not a regional Midwestern delicacy. You can buy them here at most grocery stores, convenience stores, and movie theaters. But they are typically prepackaged and far from fresh. For the perfect amount of softness and lip-scrunching flavor, buy them in bulk at Hidden Sweets in Harvard Square. Sure they cost more than sending your kid to Harvard, but the freshness and tear-inducing flavor elements are totally worth it. Besides, who needs an Ivy League education when you can savor the ecstasy of tiny little candies in the shape of fruity mutant children?

Best Place to See Hot College Guyz! (Sorry, but this ridiculous heading demanded an equally-ridiculous "z", as well as an exclamation point) - Northeastern University. Speaking of Harvard, you can keep those Harvard trust fund babies and the computer-humping Poindexters of MIT. Give me the cute college guys of Northeastern. Luckily, my office is about three steps from the Northeastern campus and is located on a mostly-residential block of student housing. Just traversing this street on my way to and from work can be a woody-causing event. And it's often far sweeter than even Sour Patch Kids.

Best Place to Commune With Boston's Native Fauna - The squirrels in Boston Common. The squirrels in Boston Common are bad-ass. There are thousands of them, and they are all unsettlingly tame and festooned with bald patches and gooey red scabs. These creatures are fighters -- and thieves. They have no problem stealing your lunch from your hand, bounding to a shady spot beneath a tree, and gobbling your entire meal right in front of you, all the while meeting your gaze and laughing maniacally. And to that furry little bastard that has my Tofurky sandwich: I know where you live.

Best Hometown Hero - Mr. Gobbles of Cambridge. Mr. Gobbles is a Cambridge institution. He is a gargantuan wild turkey that has inexplicably decided to call the Greater Boston Metropolitan Area home. How he got here and why he chooses to stay is beyond me, but Mr. Gobbles sightings are fairly common and much-discussed. This past winter, I saw him every day for an entire week. I said hello to him each time, but, being a Bostonian, he didn't reply.

Best Place to Reshape Your Spine While Napping - Fenway Park. OK, this is the one that's going to get me crucified. But I think we all know by now that Boston Red Sox fans are more fanatical than the PLO and the People's Temple combined. And though I am loathe to fess up to it, I attended a Red Sox game at Fenway Park last summer. The seats are rigid wooden torture devices that grind into your spinal column and coccyx with every breath. With that said, however, it is possible to pretzel yourself into a position that makes napping feasible. Trust me. I should know. I slept through that entire, painful game.

Best Heart Attack on a Plate - Fried Dough vendors, located in various places around the city. Before moving to Boston, I wasn't familiar with Fried Dough. Fried Dough is just what the name implies: a generous blob of dough that is deep fat fried to golden perfection. It is sold by street vendors who specialize in it and is typically accompanied with powdered sugar (though ketchup, mustard, and cheese may also sometimes accompany it). When you eat one, if you swallow very quietly, you can actually hear the arteries in your heart slamming shut.

Best Place to Practice the Fine Art of Bullet-Dodging (Or Knife-Skirting) - Well...anywhere in Boston! Crime in Boston is at a disquieting high. This year alone -- and bear in mind, we're only four months in -- there have already been 20 homicides, 67 rapes or attempted rapes, 642 robberies of attempted robberies, 130 aggravated assaults, and 114 vehicle thefts or attempted vehicle thefts. So if you've always wanted to be the finger-pointer in a police lineup, stick around for a little bit. It just may happen.