Psychopath? Or New Yorker?

One of my BFFs from college recently forwarded a riddle to me in an email.  I answered it correctly but once I scrolled further down the page, was informed that only those with psychopathic tendencies would be able to answer this riddle.  I thought that was a bit unfair since, like all of us, I have many crosses to bear but I am fairly sure that being a psychopath is not one of them.  This has never been professionally corroborated but I'm going to go with the whole "innocent until proven guilty" thing.

I am however, deeply cynical.  I come from it honestly though, partially nature, partially nurture.  My parents liked their humour black, my siblings also possess the same sarcastic streaked black humour and my nieces and nephews seem to be coming along nicely.  I myself have no children - of whom I am aware, at any rate.  Add growing up in New York to the mix and voilà, entry to the fraternity of the cynical and jaded.

But everyone's world view is coloured by where they grew-up.  At the age of about four or so, I began to find the whole Santa Claus, Easter Bunny & Tooth Fairy concepts quite unsettling.  It was my understanding that people going about your house at night, when everyone was asleep, was called "breaking & entering".  I also believe this to be the beginning of my life long battle with insomnia.

It was also around that time that my mother discovered that there was something a bit off about my recitation of "The Lord's Prayer".  I mean it made perfect sense to me since, like every other child, I was merely learning by rote and repeating what I had heard.  Or, thought I had heard.  After launching in with a hearty "Our Father who art in heaven - Hello! what's your name" I got most of the rest of it spot on until one of the last lines: "And lead us not into temptation" - it was my firm belief that that line was: "And lead us not into Penn Station".  This was still the old Pennsylvania Station and aside from the hustle and bustle of many hundreds of people, all dressed to the nines, lugging trunks and huge pieces of luggage, creating a sea of claustrophobia for a small child - there were the rickety man-(or certainly child)-eating escalators.  All in all, a fairly hateful place, in my opinion, so it seemed quite logical to me that many others might feel this way as well and asking to be lead not into that sort of chaos seemed to be a perfectly reasonable thing for which to pray. It never even occurred to me that the vast majority of the world, or even our country, had to travel through my private hell, Penn Station. 

So, psychopath? I think not.  Life-long cynic? ¡Absolutamente!