Straight out of Curb Your Enthusiasm

So I'm sitting on the subway playing Angry Birds: Halloween Edition on my iPhone, when a Cute Black Child sits down next to me. He starts watching me play and then asks, "can I play?" and with every guilty white liberal bone in my body I proudly exclaim, "Sure!"

Now I'm holding the phone while the kid plays Angry Birds. I show him how to play, but he's not doing so well. Then I explain to him that you have to pull the bird to the left in order to make it go to the right, and he's starting to get the hang of it. He beats a level and I give him a high-five. I feel like fucking RFK and MLK rolled into one for all the good I've done for racial harmony in this country. The kid starts getting so good that my hand holding the phone is obstructing his shots. So he asks if he can hold the phone himself. "Of course," I reply as I hand him the phone. As he plays, his Mom, who has been standing there the whole time, chats with me about how he really loves games and I tell her that he is very precocious and talented. If my heart were any more warmed they'd have to send in the Fire Department.

But just then, Mom jolts to attention as she realizes it's their stop and the doors just opened. She thanks me and walks to the doors. "It's our stop, let's go!" she cries out to her son. But my Cute Black Child friend is in the middle of an Angry Birds level and is solely focused on beating it (we've all been there). So I politely say, "Sorry buddy, you've gotta go with your Mom now," and put out my hands for him to give me back the phone. But he's got laser-focus on the game, and ignores me.

By this time, the doors are only 10 seconds from closing. I've got to do something, or either a) the kid will take the phone with him in his hurry to get to Mom, or b) the doors will close and I'll have to get the kid back to Mom somehow, neither of which are very appealing options. "You've gotta go!" I repeat. No reaction. So I take the only action I think can solve this morass - I reach for the iPhone. As my hand touches the iPhone, I realize this kid is not letting go. He's 100% focused on playing Angry Birds. So I gently try to pull the phone away from him, figuring this might make him understand the situation. But he just pulls the phone back toward him and tries to keep playing. Now there are 5 seconds to go until the doors close, and I've got only one, horrible option left.

And that's how I ended up grappling over an iPhone with a Cute Black Child on the subway, with him screaming "NO! IT'S MY GAME!"as I pulled on the iPhone with all my might. Finally I wrested control of the phone and the kid ran out of the train just in the nick of time, leaving me to stew in the disgusted stares of the white liberals and old Hispanic ladies around me. Somehow I'd gone from RFK to KKK in the blink of an eye.