I don’t usually enjoy or even bother to examine subway ads, but this one was pretty well-done. Allow me to translate as it’s a touch blurry: “Everyone has to grow up. It is a fact of life. Don’t be scared of it. Just make sure your apartment grows up with you.”

Even though the design made me chuckle, I call bullshit on both ideas: That people’s friends look down at them because their apartments are too cluttered, and that people should care even if their friends do think that. It’s New York. No one’s surprised to walk inside a studio and see piles of crap (left), mine especially. Yes, visitor, my extra-large-for-some-reason futon does happen to puncture your thigh as you step through the door. So what? It likes you. There’s a place for you to sit and a toilet. Get over it. I don’t need to hear that it’s small, or that you “really like the exposed brick.” People usually tell me both things — the latter purely out of pity. It’s oddly reassuring.

Note to Manhattan Mini Storage: No one in Manhattan whose apartment looks “scary” has too much stuff. They just don’t have any space to put their normal amounts of stuff because evil powers much like yourselves charge them inordinate amounts of money to occupy indoor space in Manhattan. I ride the subway because sometimes it’s fun to roam around such a huge space with more than one partition. I do it to forget the low-lit troll cave I just minutes ago escaped. A reminder that I live in a freaky dungeon is simply uncalled for.

I really need to move to Brooklyn.