Adventures in Badassery

"Excuse me,  ma'am?" says the woman in the tank top with the tattoo on her brown shoulder of a heart bisected by the name "Michael." "There's a mosquito behind you."

As the entire bench cranes to see the spindly thing perched on the subway car wall behind the woman, I reach into my bag and, after a moment's searching, pull out a crumpled Playbill for a play I saw a few weeks ago.

Feeling more badass than I have in a while, I quickly mash the magazine into the offending insect and crush it in between the pages, and the pretend that it's no big deal that I saved the day.