So, okay. City Room had this post yesterday about how the Prospect Park YMCA has started a new stroller valet service and — we know: gag. And yet we’re not feeling as barfy as we normally would about this news, partly because (a) it occurred to us that the guy running it could be an out-of-work Lehman employee and therefore good for him, and (b) there seems to be a whole special layer to the post which makes it clear that author Tina Kelley finds everyone in Park Slope obese and disgusting. At first it is subtle; She tells us that the parents who use the service are “overburdened” (read: fat), then she tells us that said fatties really like the stroller valet because then they don’t have to perform the onerous task of folding the strollers. (Probably because they sweat and are obese.) Think we are reading too much into it? Well, what about this passage?
Erica Schohn was trying to fit her daughter, Silvia, into a Maclaren, which appeared to be the brand of choice. But Silvia would not bend, throwing back her whale-spout ponytail and arching her body.
Right: The ponytail of the little girl who could not fit into her carriage — and furthermore “would not bend” — looks like a whale spout. Really. But the theme truly crystallizes with this line about how stroller valet Joe Caraballo flips the canopies down on the strollers “so the seats won’t be too hot for the chubby thighs returning from yoga class.” Emphasis ours, but, we think, hardly necessary.
Stroller Central, Now With a Valet [City Room/NYT]
