“There is no need,” the man said.

A generation of Manhattan moms showing up to private-school drop-offs and pickups via public bus wearing scruffy loafers has yielded to a battalion of yummy mummies, clattering out of black Escalades and Denalis in Louboutin heels. And who is often at the wheel of these big black SUV’s clogging the Upper East Side? Wave hello to the “dranny,” a hybrid of driver and nanny that is the latest member of the rich urban family’s retinue.

“He arranges things and is also our house manager,” said Anne B., a working Park Avenue mother of children in private school who, like most parents interviewed for this article, did not want her full name used, partly for security reasons. “He talks to the soccer coach.”

“He’s one of the most important people in my life!” gushed Barbara S., another Park Avenue mother of two who hired a “dranny” after post-9/11 anxiety set in (“I don’t take the subway,” she said), not to mention mounting frustration at the impossibility of finding a free cab at 5 p.m. outside of Gymtime. “He really cares about the kids and is like part of the family,” she said (the kids, however, are instructed not to call him “their” driver to friends). “He even waited in the ER with my mother.”

Jill Zarin, an Upper East Side mother of a teenager, who together with her husband operates Zarin Fabrics and Home Furnishing, is a “dranny” pioneer, having employed one for a decade—“I talk to Juan about a lot of things,” enthused her 10th-grade daughter, Allyson Shapiro—and calls the hire a practical investment. “Cabs are exorbitant!” said Ms. Zarin, who is featured on the upcoming Bravo TV series The Real Housewives of New York City (see article, page C4). “I took a cab from 60th street to downtown the other day and it cost me $20.”

According to Keith Greenhouse, CEO of the midtown-based Pavillion Agency/Nanny Authority, who matches personal service employees with the “super-elite,” drivers working a 40-hour week make on average between $50,000 and $60,000 per year. Meanwhile, nannies average between $42,000 and $62,000 gross (on the books), said Holly Rucki, a placement specialist at Pavillion Agency. Assuming three children—the new Upper East Side standard—that non-driving nanny could also require something like $16,000 annually for cabs and mass transit for a five-day week and multiple afternoon activities, so one can see how employing a “dranny” might make a certain kind of financial sense.

“As the kids get older, the nanny may have less responsibility and the driver may step in,” Mr. Greenhouse said.

Brian Taylor, owner of New York Domestics, a household staffing agency on Fifth Avenue, said he’s seen a 20 percent increase in families hiring private drivers in the past two years, and that their responsibilities often include ferrying the father to work, the mother to her appointments, and the kids to and from schools, play dates, and after-school activities. “The driver becomes a working member of the family,” he said.

Life Lessons of the 6 Train

Not all the affluent are delighted by this new trend, of course.

“It’s about a badge. All banker Wall Street families have to do the same thing,” Leslie J., a native New Yorker with children who walk to their nearby private school, said with evident disgust. “Having drivers keeps these women away from the dirty parts of the city, which for some of them includes all forms of public transportation.”

Adam Shapiro, another native New Yorker and a Park Avenue lawyer with his own kids in private school, expressed nostalgia for less ostentatious times. “When I was growing up in the city, very few people had drivers and having one was a big, noticeable deal,” he wrote in an e-mail message. “Part of growing up was learning how to budget transportation time, how to choose the best route and how to take responsibility for ourselves. The rewards: self-confidence, freedom to explore the city and a treasure of experiences. Many of my friends’ parents probably could have afforded drivers, but it would never have occurred to them to hire one for themselves, let alone for us.”

“These kids are not being taught how to navigate in an urban environment,” tsked Victoria Goldman, author of The Manhattan Guide to Private Schools (Soho Press, $30). “It’s a total misuse of power to have a driver wait in front of a bar for a 10th- or 11th-grader to come out.”

And even enthusiasts see a downside to the dranny. “It’s kind of invasive!” Barbara S. said. “People know my car and driver. I’ve had friends say, ‘So, what did you buy at Hermes?’ But at the same time, it’s priceless to know who’s home and who’s not. I once called someone, and the housekeeper said she was not home. But I saw her driver in front of her building, so I knew she was screening her calls.”

Still, many less privileged parents admitted that “it would be nice” to have a driver, especially on a rainy day at pickup time, when the buses are packed and trying to find a cab is like waiting for Godot. Such moments of urban helplessness can ignite the temper of even the most well-adjusted mother, particularly when she sees other families being whisked into the comfort of a plush SUV.

One such mom, whom we’ll call Tracey E., recounted the day she was shlepping up the street in the pouring rain, with her youngest of her three children in a Maclaren stroller and her oldest one walking. Suddenly she saw a chauffeured black Mercedes wagon drive by. The window slid down and Tracey glimpsed her middle daughter, who was on a play date, gleefully calling, “Bye, Mommy!”

“What did I do wrong?” Tracey thought to herself.

Son 'Loves' the Durango

Frustrated, some mothers are electing to slide behind the wheel themselves, just as if they lived in Scarsdale or Greenwich.

Crystal Sikora, a classical singer and mother of a 7-year-old son, lives uptown but chauffeurs her son, who had an unspecified traumatic experience on the school bus, to and from his downtown private school in her black Dodge Durango. “I spend four hours a day in the car,” she said. “My son loves it because I have a DVD player and we spend quiet time in the car together. I like control of my nice, clean car.”

Audrey Silver Levin, a professional singer, native New Yorker and mother of a middle-school son in private school, tootles around the city all the time in her tan Acura MDX. “We live a little over a mile from school,” Ms. Levin said. “When my son has basketball practice and gets out at 5:30 p.m., he just hops in.” It’s “easier” and “more reliable” than getting a taxi, she said.

Whether it’s “Juan” or mom navigating these chariots through city streets, congestion has become a significant problem.

“Madison Avenue is a nightmare at pickup time,” Ms. Goldman said. “And it’s not just buses or the fact that they’re shooting Gossip Girl.”

“We are constantly fielding complaints about black cars violating traffic rules,” said Councilman Daniel R.
Garodnick of District 4, which includes the Upper East Side. “Residents have seen a proliferation of these cars.”

Ned Pinger, chief administrative officer at the Dalton School, said that in the past five years there have been more drivers at drop-off and pickup times, though he attributed this to the geographical diversity of the student body as well as the economic boom. Double-parking has become so problematic that the school recently sent a memo to families asking that they be respectful if they drive to school and don’t linger. “We have security just to help out with the traffic,” he said.

One Upper East Side school administrator, who asked not to be named, said that the neighbors complain all the time, so “we’ve asked the police to ticket the cars to alleviate the double-parking.” He noted, however, that the police are sometimes reluctant to ticket these cars because of the prominent families who own them.

“We target schools and work with the police department in handing out tickets,” said Edward Timbers, a spokesperson at the Department of Transportation “We put in ‘no parking’ rules around many schools.”

Indeed, many mothers said that getting parking tickets is part of the cost of driving your car around Manhattan. “Bloomberg’s ticket marathon is out of control,” said Barbara S. Ms. Zarin also said her family gets about two to three citations per month, even if Juan is sitting in the car. “You have to add that to your costs,” she said.

And what about the gigantic carbon footprint of these behemoths? “An idling SUV is very bad for the environment,” Mr. Garodnick said. “We want to encourage people to get out of their cars and into mass transit, for the sake of the environment and congestion.”

Allyson Shapiro, Ms. Zarin’s 10th-grader, is one of the sheltered kids finally allowed to explore the glory of mass transit. “This year I started taking the train,” she said, and marveled: “It was so fast!”

Do your ears hang low? Do they wobble to and fro?

You might remember that silly little ditty from summer camp, but for many women in New York society, thin, droopy ears—stretched by gravity over time, exacerbated by heavy earrings—are no laughing matter. Sagging boobs can be supported by a good bra, but there’s no way of strapping flaccid, exposed lobes into underwire.

Perhaps it’s time to visit the cosmetic dermatologist?

For the past few years, Dr. Howard Sobel, director of the Skin and Spa Dermatologic Cosmetic Surgery Center on 960 Park Avenue, has been quietly plumping up women’s ears with injectable serums such as Restylane and Radiesse—the same ones he uses to rejuvenate their faces. “As people get older, the ear loses volume and shows wrinkle lines,” said Dr. Sobel. “It’s part of the aging process.”

Dr. Sobel noted that if a woman is using fillers in her face to clean up things like naso-labial folds and forehead lines, making her face appear more youthful, then aging ears may stand out even more. Put another way, you want the handles to complement the vase—kind of like making sure your accessories match your outfit.

Though in this case, of course, accessories are precisely the problem. “One patient only wore big, heavy earrings, and part of the reason was that she was trying to cover her stretched-out ears!” Dr. Sobel said. “She didn’t realize that the big earrings were only making the earlobe stretch more. When the hole gets too big it starts to pull the ear down. So we repaired the pierced hole in her ear and injected it, which added volume back, and it looked like her old ear.” This is a common procedure, he added.

“The value of earrings may be lost with a thinner ear,” said Dr. Roy Geronemus, director of Laser and Skin Surgery Center of New York and a clinical professor of dermatology at N.Y.U. Medical Center, who said he is increasingly performing more injections into earlobes. “It’s a minor tip-off to age, and plumping makes the ear look more youthful.”

Daniella Vitolo, the store manager at the Judith Ripka jewelry store at 673 Madison Avenue, said that her customers’ biggest complaint is that their ear hole is getting pulled. “My clients absolutely discuss the issue of ears looking pulled down—as early as their 40’s,” she said. Ms. Vitolo said that though many of her clients have had their ears re-pierced and it helps a lot, none thus far have ’fessed up to doing injections.

A Hush-Hush Procedure

Indeed, so reluctant are ladies to talk about the ear-plumping experience, you’d think they we were discussing vaginal rejuvenation surgery here,

Elaine (who asked that her last name not be used), a 55-year-old advertising and sales executive who lives on the Upper East Side, noticed about a year and a half ago that her “good” earrings were hanging down and not staying close to her ears. “I looked crappy,” she said—and since she has a short coif, her droopy lobes were out there for all to see.

She had been having Botox injections for forehead lines at the Skin and Spa center. “I mentioned my ears to Dr. Sobel and I thought he would laugh about it,’” she said. On the contrary. The good doctor suggested a Restylane treatment, after which “my earrings looked fabulous!” said his pleased patient. “I had dinner with a girlfriend that same evening and she said to me, ‘Those earrings are gorgeous!’ She had never noticed them before.”

Subsequently, Elaine’s mother, who is in her 70’s, wanted to give Elaine some valuable earrings that no longer looked good on her own ears; Elaine mentioned she had had her earlobes injected. So her mother, who had never before had cosmetic work, went in and did the same thing.

The procedure is very quick and essentially painless. Dr. John Romano, a partner at West Village Dermatology, said that numbing gel can be used, even though it may not be necessary. He then injects a thin needle of filler (usually Restylane, which is a clear gel composed of hyaluronic acid, a natural substance found in the body) into the back side of the earlobe at about two or three different sites. “I massage the gel in there until it has a smooth feel,” he said. “The ear then seems to plump up.” It takes about 5 to 10 minutes per ear.

The effects are immediate, so patients get instant gratification—not like waiting weeks for your nose job to morph from puffy blob to perky bob. Generally there is very little if any bruising, and if it does occur, it’s temporary.

How much does it cost? Dr. Sobel charges $750 for a syringe of Restylane (for both ears) or silicone, and $950 for Radiesse (a filler composed from bone, which lasts longer). Silicone is permanent, but it has to be done very slowly, over a period of about four months. Most of the other fillers last about six to eight months. (Ear today, gone tomorrow, in other words. Sorry!)

Dr. Patricia Wexler, a leading Manhattan cosmetic dermatologist to upper-class New York, has plumped numerous earlobes since 2003 (including those of a desperate patient who got six-carat heart-shaped diamond earrings for her birthday), and she believes this kind of super-specialized procedure is a growing trend. In addition to Restylane, Dr. Wexler sometimes uses the filler Sculptra, a newer injectable whose effects can last longer than some others, and which takes several weeks to stimulate. Dr. Wexler also sometimes uses fat injections—harvested from numerous parts of the body, such as the “saddlebag” area on the outer thighs—in the earlobe.

While some patients practically beg to have their appendages enhanced—“My ears are starting to look my dog’s,” one of Dr. Romano’s patients told him—others come by the procedure in a more roundabout way. Often patients who are receiving facial fillers will have “leftovers” and they might say, “What else can you do for me?” After all, it’s not like excess Restylane can be recycled. “It is kind of a use-it-or-lose-it thing,” Dr. Sobel said.

When Mrs. L., an Upper East Side woman in her 60’s who asked that her real name not be used, was receiving Restylane in her face from Dr. Geronemus about six months ago, the doctor told her that there was some filler left and that maybe she should consider plumping her thinning earlobes. “I thought that was kind of funny, but after the injections my ears looked great!” she said.

And if you think worrying about one’s lobes is nitpicky, doctors are now injecting the “peach pit,” a name for the wrinkly skin that forms in the cleavage of older women (a particular problem for thin women who have had implants, Dr. Wexler said), so that they can look better in low-cut gowns and push-up bras.

“Nothing seems way off the charts anymore, “said the writer Nora Ephron, who famously atomized the female figure in the best-selling essay collection I Feel Bad About My Neck. She does not feel bad about her ears, she added. Not yet.

“Where else around here can you get that kind of food?” she said.

Up and down the prime retail stretch of Madison Avenue, new luxury European designer emporiums are popping out as prolifically as celebrity babies. Meanwhile, the old-fashioned coffee shop, one of New York’s most quintessential and beloved establishments, has become an endangered species, so imperiled that many neo-New Yorkers now consider the phrase “coffee shop” synonymous with—the horror!—“Starbucks.”

Also gone, since the summer of 2006: Soup Burg on 73rd Street. Threatened: 3 Guys, between 75th and 76th. Where are Upper East Siders supposed to get a decent grilled cheese, chicken salad or BLT? What about a cup of coffee that doesn’t taste artfully over-roasted and come served with a world-music soundtrack? How about a sense of community that hasn’t been generated in some corporate boardroom?

“When Gardenia’s doors closed, it closed a piece of our lives,” said Jill Simonson, director of corporate relations at Dress for Success, who used to eat at the diner several times a week when she worked at Ungaro, across the street, and became friends with the owners.

Slideshow

The Last Coffee Shop

“I’m starving!” wailed Muriel Melendez, assistant store manager at the women’s clothing boutique Marina Rinaldi, also across the street. “I really miss the convenience … and being known by name.”

“I went to stop by for lunch the other day and was shocked that they weren’t there,” said Albert Hadley, the well-known interior designer. “It’s a great loss. I went there several times a week. We all miss a place like that. It was very popular with lots of people.” Mr. Hadley said that he’s been eating at his desk of late.

“The area is not the same without Gardenia,” said Joyce Black, who has lived in the neighborhood for about 30 years. “Where do you go now? When I walk past it, I feel sad.”

BLT’S WITH J.F.K. JR.

According to George Katsichtis, 24, one of the family members who ran the Gardenia, it was his own uncle, owner of the building, who decided to renovate and lease the property to a more profitable mystery tenant. “We were devastated,” young Mr. Katsichtis said. “It was our bread and butter. We had three generations of customers.”

Mr. Katsichtis is currently looking for space to open his own restaurant. “Not a diner,” he said. “Something trendy.”

John Zannikos and Spiro Argiros, the owners of 3 Guys for 30 years, said that they are hoping to renew their lease, though their landlord, William Friedland of Friedland Properties, wants to raise their rent to three times more than what they are currently paying. “We don’t want people to lose their jobs,” Mr. Zannikos said.

“The city is turning into a nightmare with rents,” said Mr. Argiros. “We hope our landlord will be understanding that this is an institution, not just a restaurant.”

Mr. Friedland, who also owns the building that formerly housed Soup Burg, refused to comment.

Wendy Chaiken, 32, a local mother of three young children, shudders at the prospect of losing 3 Guys. “There are so few places that accommodate strollers,” she said, noting that the popular restaurant Serafina nearby has steep stairs. “And you can’t just order a grilled cheese at places like Serafina!”

Indeed, 3 Guys has become a veritable hot spot for uptown yummy mummies and their broods, as documented by Chanel scion Jill Kargman in her novel Momzillas: “This was the epicenter of mommypalooza,” she wrote. “All roads lead to 3 Guys.”

“It’s such a scene for the preschool set,” said Ms. Chaiken.

“You feel like you run into everyone,” said Samantha Kaufman, another local mom.

For some, it was a bit much to face at breakfast. “When I lived near 3 Guys, I really didn’t go there much because it was too much of a scene,” said Renee Tobin, 37, a mother of two (with another on the way). “I wasn’t interested in getting that dressed up in the morning.”

But most customers protest that these diners are special precisely because you don’t really have to dress up to eat there. Even Ladies Who Lunch, after all, don’t always feel like enduring the social scrutiny at La Goulue or Nello, especially if they are still in their Pilates pants, pre-blow-out and sans makeup.

“Sometimes when I went to Gardenia I didn’t look good, so I’d hide behind my bag,” Ms. Black admitted.

In their own version of causal “Fry-day,” high-society ladies and gents, celebrities and politicos have been scarfing down burgers at these Madison Avenue diners for decades. “Jackie Kennedy and J.F.K. Jr. used to eat here,” Sergios Despotis (known as Steve), owner of Viand on 78th Street for 35 years, said proudly. “Caroline still comes in. And Mayor Bloomberg, who lives right down the street, comes in two to three times a week for breakfast.”

“Mayor Bloomberg practices his Spanish with me,” piped up Viand waitress Mirta Alvarez.

Ms. Kaufman’s mother, Susan Leibowitz, recalled having lunch at 3 Guys with her daughters one day when the late socialite Nan Kempner came over and told her that this was her favorite coffee shop. “Her family was in from San Francisco—and she took them to 3 Guys!” she said.

Some of Gardenia’s celebrity patrons, meanwhile, included Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Sarah Jessica Parker. “She got her hair done at the salon upstairs”—John Frieda—“and was supersweet,” Mr. Katsichtis said.

In the homey atmosphere of these coffee shops, boldface names literally rub elbows with doormen, and elderly patrons befriend young children.

“My daughter Grace regularly sees this elderly couple at 3 Guys who are always there at 12 o’clock,” Ms. Chaiken said. “As my mother said, ‘They take you from cradle to grave.’”

But can the Madison Avenue coffee shop itself fend off the Grim Reaper?

Dino Bastas, an owner of the New Amity Restaurant near 84th Street, which has been operating for 30 years, said his lease is up in May 2008, and he knows there will be a significant increase in rent due to market values. “We’ve attempted to talk with our landlord,” he said, “but this is a tough business. Corporate entities are willing to pay to have a presence on Madison Avenue. And landlords don’t want restaurants as tenants. A restaurant is not sexy.”

Viand’s landlord of 40 years, Dr. Edward Soufer, knows that leasing to a restaurant is difficult. “The insurance goes up,” he said. “Fumes, bugs and rodents can be a problem. It’s not as clean as having a clothing store in your building.”

Still, Dr. Soufer has a soft spot for his tenants, and even though Citibank made him an offer for the same building, he refused to sell out. “They were willing to pay anything! But I like Steve, and I told him as long as I’m alive he’s going to be here.”

Perhaps that’s why Mr. Despotis is magnanimous about landlords raising rents. “It’s a business,” he said. “The market is crazy.”

THE $7.95 GRILLED CHEESE

Of course, with exorbitant rents come exorbitant prices, at least for diner food. “If our rent is raised our prices will have to go up,” Mr. Bastas said. Mr. Zannikos of 3 Guys agreed that he would probably have to raise prices if his rent goes much higher. “The workers from the neighborhood who purchase food here may not be able to afford it then,” he said. “We’re already known as the most expensive coffee shop in the city because of our location.”

“The prices are so high already that it’s pretty insane,” complained Ms. Chaiken. “I took the kids to Sette Mezzo [at 71st Street and Lexington], and the lunch there was only nominally more expensive.”

“It gets to a point where you might as well be eating at Bergdorf’s,” said one neighborhood mother. “But,” she pointed out, “at 3 Guys you can order a salad while your kids get grilled cheese and fries.”

“How much can you charge for a grilled cheese?” wondered Mr. Despotis. (Try as much as $7.95 at some of these joints, and that’s before the leases have been renewed.)

Still, many patrons refuse to stand by and watch their favorite haunts be eviscerated by retailers flush with the almighty euro. Some have turned to the New York City Council. “This is a difficult social problem that needs to be addressed on a broader level,” said Councilman Daniel R. Garodnick of District 4, which includes the Upper East Side.

Mr. Garodnick noted that the Council’s small business committee is considering ways to encourage restaurant owners to stay in the community, such as zoning changes and tax incentives. “These coffee shops are community gathering places,” he said. “They give character and life to an area. We need to be careful, or they will be lost.”

It appears that the diners, unlike certain beloved neighborhood institutions, have not quite made it to landmark status. “The law does not give us the authority to tell a property owner how his or her building can be used,” said a spokeswoman for the Landmarks Preservation Commission. Roger Lang, director of the nonprofit New York Landmarks Conservancy, said that his organization focuses on architectural and not cultural significance. “We’re building huggers,” he said.

However, concerned citizens can advocate for favorite endangered retail establishments through a project called Place Matters (www.placematters.net), formed jointly in 1998 by the Municipal Arts Society and a national not-for-profit called City Lore. So far, Juniors in Brooklyn and Minetta Tavern in the Village have made a citywide survey called Census of Places that Matter—why not 3 Guys, Viand and the Amity? And hey, while you’re at it, stick the Nectar on 82nd there, too!

“Other cities have been able to support small business owners by establishing a progressive tax,” remarked Vanessa Gruen, director of special projects at the MAS, “but the New York State Constitution does not allow it.”

And so for the time being, Madison Avenue shoppers may have to trudge a little farther to find the greasy fare and casual atmosphere they have enjoyed for years. “We need coffee shops for quick, informal lunches and as a safe haven for teenagers,” Ms. Leibowitz implored. “Plus”—oh, that treasured New York rite!—“you can go in alone and sit at the counter!”

“People come in and ask where Gardenia is,” mournfully said Joseph Wohltjen, a salesman at Searle, next-door neighbor to the doomed diner. “It’s definitely missed. It’s retail or nothing now.”

But no matter how many fabulous new European designer boutiques open along the Avenue, even the most intrepid fashionistas need to eat at some point. And right now, the pickings are as slim as the waifish women in the hood.

“The people who live and shop around Madison Avenue still want food,” said Noufri Argiros, son of Spiro, the 3 Guys co-owner. “And you can’t eat a Prada bag.”

Acting as judge and honorary co-chair was Howard Stern’s fiancée, toothy and toothsome animal activist Beth Ostrosky. “One of the male models came up and asked if I was a judge, and I told him ‘Yes, so you better kiss my ass!’” Ms. Ostrosky said. Hey, how’s the wedding planning going? “I’m just enjoying the engagement,” she said. “There are no plans yet.”

Co-chair Lorenzo Borgese, of The Bachelor, said he recently adopted a mutt named James Bond, and is about to launch nuzzleplanet.com, a social networking site for dog lovers. “We’re all trying to find our significant other,” he said meaningfully.

Yet another co-chair was Aida Turturro, who plays Janice on The Sopranos and owns a black Lab named Buddy. “They think they’re saving the dogs, but they’re really saving the people who get to keep them,” she said of the charity. “It’s a gift from God.” She compared dog ownership to having a baby. “But without stretch marks!”

Ms. Turturro added that she was suffering from withdrawal symptoms thanks to the imminent end of her hit show. But “everything comes to an end,” she said sagely. Her immediate post-Sopranos plan is to sit by the beach, and she gave no indication about whether her character would be swimming with the fishes.

As for the dogs—well, all were adorable, but the top prize went to Rusty, a chow-chow collie in a purple embroidered coat from Fetch Fashion.

“I don’t make the rules,” he said. “We have to weigh them together. If you don’t want the frittata, I can take it out after I weigh it.”

“But that’s not fair,” I argued, becoming increasingly agitated. “I want to speak to the manager.”

Having uttered the time-honored “manager” phrase, I realized I was headed for a confrontation. There is nothing more righteous than a New Yorker at the local gourmet food store, trying not to get taken. The manager was just a few feet away at another counter, busy cutting nova for another customer. I marched over and demanded that he deal with my situation. He kept asking me to wait. When I grew impatient, his customer freaked out. “My mother just died!” she yelled at me. I had been trumped by shiva salmon.

I bought my fish, stomped home and recounted the scene to my husband. “Oh no, not Citarella!” he moaned. “Now you can’t go back there either?”

I’ll admit it: This isn’t the first time that I’ve blown my stack at a neighborhood establishment, only to later regret having to find a less convenient, less desirable alternative. Think of that Seinfeld episode where Kramer and then Jerry are banned from their favorite fruit market, or Frances McDormand’s character in the movie Friends with Money, becoming enraged at an Old Navy as someone cuts in front of her in line. It’s the urban consumer’s equivalent of road rage. And if you’re going to take a stand, you’d better be prepared to make a sacrifice.

I used to love eating at a local Lexington Avenue coffee shop because they had fantastic grilled-cheese sandwiches. One day my friend and I were having lunch there, and they tried to charge her for a hot-water refill on her tea. She had a huge fit. I completely agreed that charging just for hot water—not even a fresh teabag!—was an outrageous act of price gouging, and we both yelled at the manager about this insane policy (his rationale was that if they charged for hot water, customers wouldn’t order any more tea, thus facilitating table turnover). We vowed we would never grace those particular tables again, but sometimes when I pass by the place, I wish I had fewer principles and more grilled cheese.

My husband, meanwhile, recently wrote off a Middle Eastern restaurant on the Upper East Side. When we ate there and ordered the hummus, we always had lots of pita, but when we did takeout they always skimped on the bread. We had several arguments with the manager over the rationing of the pita and the restaurant’s insistence that they had to charge us for the “extra” bread until, finally, my husband just lost it. He told the manager that if they would not give us adequate amounts of bread for our hummus, we were not coming back. I still miss their grilled octopus.

And I know we’re not alone in our ambivalent indignation.

My friend Victoria, also an Upper East Sider, once brought some dirty slipcovers from her sofa into a dry cleaner she’d frequented for four years. The manager told her they should be dry-cleaned. After the process, they were still filthy, and the manager said, “Oh no, you should have had them washed in the industrial washing machine. The dry-cleaning would never remove those stains!” So she left them to be washed. A week later the stains were still there. The manager told her, “Oh no, you should have them dry-cleaned—washing will never remove those stains!” Victoria then pointed out that dry-cleaning had been his original suggestion, to which the manager responded, “I’m sorry, there is nothing I can do for you.”

“Well, then I guess I cannot come back,” Victoria said, making her exit. “I am proud to say I have never returned—it has been about five years now,” she told me. “But it still kills me that every time I need to have my clothes dry-cleaned, I need to go the extra block out of my way.”

Another friend—let’s call her “Plum”—was almost arrested after she refused to pay the bill at an Upper West Side hair salon. She had gotten it colored and asked the price of a cut with blow-dry: $45. She decided against the cut. The stylist asked if she wanted the blow-dry anyway. Plum said sure. Then came the bill. The charge for the blow-dry: 30 bucks. Plum went ballistic (and it wasn’t the first or last time; “I’m blacklisted from many places in the city,” she admitted). Within 10 minutes, two bemused policemen arrived on the scene and she reluctantly forked up.

Though Plum knew she could never return to that salon, she really liked her new look. So she asked one of the officers to help her out. “What color did you use on her hair?” the cop asked the stylist, who disgustedly replied something generic and useless like “Clairol.”

Having a meltdown in front of a merchant isn’t always costly, of course. If it’s a ubiquitous store like Starbucks or Duane Reade, you can either find another branch a block away or wait a few months until the staff turns over again and they have no idea that you’re the lunatic who screamed about your delayed chai latte.

But my most recent New York consumer-rage moment left a particularly bad taste in my mouth. I wasn’t shopping for something frivolous, but searching all over the Upper East Side for some plastic shofars to bring to my son’s class. One of my stops was the Jewish Museum gift shop. I asked the cashier for help, and she told me that she didn’t have any shofars, but that the Jewish Community Center on the Upper West Side might have some left. She then told me that the J.C.C. didn’t have enough shofars for me, although I observed she hadn’t called them. When I asked how she knew, she said in a very patronizing voice, “Because I checked the computer!” She was so nasty, especially given that it was a holiday, that I stormed out of the shop, yelling, “Yeah, have a really happy new year!”

“And Shana Tova to you!” called the Hispanic security guard, as I fled the museum. It’s going to be a long time before I frequent that gift shop again. Like maybe when the Messiah comes.

“I don’t make the rules,” he said. “We have to weigh them together. If you don’t want the frittata, I can take it out after I weigh it.”

“But that’s not fair,” I argued, becoming increasingly agitated. “I want to speak to the manager.”

Having uttered the time-honored “manager” phrase, I realized I was headed for a confrontation. There is nothing more righteous than a New Yorker at the local gourmet food store, trying not to get taken. The manager was just a few feet away at another counter, busy cutting nova for another customer. I marched over and demanded that he deal with my situation. He kept asking me to wait. When I grew impatient, his customer freaked out. “My mother just died!” she yelled at me. I had been trumped by shiva salmon.

I bought my fish, stomped home and recounted the scene to my husband. “Oh no, not Citarella!” he moaned. “Now you can’t go back there either?”

I’ll admit it: This isn’t the first time that I’ve blown my stack at a neighborhood establishment, only to later regret having to find a less convenient, less desirable alternative. Think of that Seinfeld episode where Kramer and then Jerry are banned from their favorite fruit market, or Frances McDormand’s character in the movie Friends with Money, becoming enraged at an Old Navy as someone cuts in front of her in line. It’s the urban consumer’s equivalent of road rage. And if you’re going to take a stand, you’d better be prepared to make a sacrifice.

I used to love eating at a local Lexington Avenue coffee shop because they had fantastic grilled-cheese sandwiches. One day my friend and I were having lunch there, and they tried to charge her for a hot-water refill on her tea. She had a huge fit. I completely agreed that charging just for hot water— not even a fresh teabag!—was an outrageous act of price gouging, and we both yelled at the manager about this insane policy (his rationale was that if they charged for hot water, customers wouldn’t order any more tea, thus facilitating table turnover). We vowed we would never grace those particular tables again, but sometimes when I pass by the place, I wish I had fewer principles and more grilled cheese.

My husband, meanwhile, recently wrote off a Middle Eastern restaurant on the Upper East Side. When we ate there and ordered the hummus, we always had lots of pita, but when we did takeout they always skimped on the bread. We had several arguments with the manager over the rationing of the pita and the restaurant’s insistence that they had to charge us for the “extra” bread until, finally, my husband just lost it. He told the manager that if they would not give us adequate amounts of bread for our hummus, we were not coming back. I still miss their grilled octopus.

And I know we’re not alone in our ambivalent indignation.

My friend Victoria, also an Upper East Sider, once brought some dirty slipcovers from her sofa into a dry cleaner she’d frequented for four years. The manager told her they should be dry-cleaned. After the process, they were still filthy, and the manager said, “Oh no, you should have had them washed in the industrial washing machine. The dry-cleaning would never remove those stains!” So she left them to be washed. A week later the stains were still there. The manager told her, “Oh no, you should have them dry-cleaned—washing will never remove those stains!” Victoria then pointed out that dry-cleaning had been his original suggestion, to which the manager responded, “I’m sorry, there is nothing I can do for you.”

“Well, then I guess I cannot come back,” Victoria said, making her exit. “I am proud to say I have never returned—it has been about five years now,” she told me. “But it still kills me that every time I need to have my clothes dry-cleaned, I need to go the extra block out of my way.”

Another friend—let’s call her “Plum”—was almost arrested after she refused to pay the bill at an Upper West Side hair salon. She had gotten it colored and asked the price of a cut with blow-dry: $45. She decided against the cut. The stylist asked if she wanted the blow-dry anyway. Plum said sure. Then came the bill. The charge for the blow-dry: 30 bucks. Plum went ballistic (and it wasn’t the first or last time; “I’m blacklisted from many places in the city,” she admitted). Within 10 minutes, two bemused policemen arrived on the scene and she reluctantly forked up.

Though Plum knew she could never return to that salon, she really liked her new look. So she asked one of the officers to help her out. “What color did you use on her hair?” the cop asked the stylist, who disgustedly replied something generic and useless like “Clairol.”

Having a meltdown in front of a merchant isn’t always costly, of course. If it’s a ubiquitous store like Starbucks or Duane Reade, you can either find another branch a block away or wait a few months until the staff turns over again and they have no idea that you’re the lunatic who screamed about your delayed chai latte.

But my most recent New York consumer-rage moment left a particularly bad taste in my mouth. I wasn’t shopping for something frivolous, but searching all over the Upper East Side for some plastic shofars to bring to my son’s class. One of my stops was the Jewish Museum gift shop. I asked the cashier for help, and she told me that she didn’t have any shofars, but that the Jewish Community Center on the Upper West Side might have some left. She then told me that the J.C.C. didn’t have enough shofars for me, although I observed she hadn’t called them. When I asked how she knew, she said in a very patronizing voice, “Because I checked the computer!” She was so nasty, especially given that it was a holiday, that I stormed out of the shop, yelling, “Yeah, have a really happy new year!”

“And Shana Tova to you!” called the Hispanic security guard, as I fled the museum. It’s going to be a long time before I frequent that gift shop again. Like maybe when the Messiah comes.

I had an awkward phone conversation with the missus above. She deftly stated that if the problem were indeed caused by their renovation, then their contractor would repair it. I was feeling edgy. The ceiling had a heavy light fixture that at any moment could have come crashing down like the chandelier in Phantom of the Opera and knocked our daughter unconscious while she was brushing her teeth.

We removed the fixture and waited. One got the impression that the neighbors’ contractor was trying to avoid ripping up his clients’ new tiled floor to find the leak, and my husband and I were increasingly convinced that we would have to endure a messy legal battle.

Luckily, that didn’t happen. Workers invaded our living space, and the ceiling was fixed. I don’t have to dread running into our neighbors in the lobby (although there will always be a little undercurrent of unease that doesn’t quite go away).

I’ve renovated two prewar apartments myself, and it’s hard for me to say which is worse: being the alleged perpetrator of damage or the victim of someone else’s renovation fallout. There’s nothing like standing next to a potential plaintiff in the wood-paneled confines of your building’s elevator. And if the trouble should be with a co-op board member, you can pretty much forget about getting a fair trial.

When my first project was underway, the downstairs neighbors complained about—you guessed it—a crack in their dining-room ceiling. When my contractor went down to take a look, he observed that said ceiling hadn’t been painted since the 1920’s. There were profuse paint chips flaking off, which seemed to have no relationship to the alleged fissure. Nevertheless, he generously directed his painter to skim-coat the entire surface.

It seems that renovations often pave the way for aggrieved shareholders to get free touch-ups of their own crumbling apartments. Because spurious claims have become so rampant in prewar buildings, many contractors now insist upon inspecting and photographing downstairs apartments prior to the renovation process, to provide handy recourse when the neighbors claim your jack-hammering caused their “showplace” to look like a $5 million tenement.

Before my friend Hilary commissioned construction in her apartment, which is in an exclusive Upper East Side building, she tried diligently to get such pictures of all the adjoining abodes. “All neighbors consented to the photo session,” she said, “except the lady below us.” As co-op fate would have it, when the renovations were complete, this downstairs neighbor complained that there was damage to her dwelling. Not that she would permit an inspection of the premises. “She presented us with a bill for over $3,000 in cleaning services,” Hilary said. “I think she wanted her apartment cleaned and used this as a way to make us pay. Our contractor paid it because he wanted to make ‘peace in the valley.’”

Some claims are so outlandish that they would send even the most diplomatic renovators screaming to the suburbs. While doing work on their Park Avenue apartment, my friend Linda and her husband were sued for dust damage by their neighbor two floors above. There was no problem with the apartment directly upstairs, but somehow these pixie particles magically wafted through two floors. The neighbor collected $23,000 from the insurance company. Linda later discovered that he had sued other people in the building as well.

Then there was the Upper East Side “eccentric” my contractor encountered after his electrician accidentally broke a fist-sized hole into the apartment adjacent to his client. My contractor sent an apologetic note and flowers. The neighbor said she didn’t want the hole fixed. Nor did she want the mess on the carpet removed. Instead, she billed her renovating neighbors for the following items: 1) the services of three structural engineers to make sure the wall didn’t fall down, 2) a visit to her cardiologist’s office to make sure she wasn’t breathing in any dust and 3) a box of Godiva chocolates, “to calm her nerves.” Although this woman collected insurance money, she is suing her neighbors for $25,000. Nine months later, the schmutz is still on her carpet.

Many rich New Yorkers apparently just take it for granted that litigation is going to ensue. An architect friend of mine told me that in one building he renovated, the work had caused a hairline crack in the neighbor’s wall. One day the architect and contractor ran into the neighbor, who said, “Cracks are one thing, but I’ve just gotta sue you.” He was perfectly polite and didn’t seem at all upset—just resigned. “That kind of thinking is pretty typical of New Yorkers,” said my architect friend. “In this rarefied atmosphere, people are so accustomed to dealing with lawyers.” Then there’s that co-op in the East 70’s where an upstairs neighbor complained that a downstairs neighbors’ retiling of a bathroom two levels below had somehow caused a crack. Upstairs sued for $10,000. Downstairs countersued for the same amount, claiming that the neighbor’s leak had damaged their master-bedroom closet. In the end, both claims were settled.

Even if your relationship with your neighbors remains non-adversarial, don’t forget contending with the building staff, which often wields significant power. The super controls the flow of workers in and out of the building and can choose whether or not to bend the rules to allow workers to stay over the 4:30 p.m. service-elevator closing time (which some staff cling to with NASA-like accuracy). A little greasing of the palms is expected, but my beloved contractor was once the victim of a shakedown at a Central Park West building. “The super said, ‘We’re not going to let you work in the building unless you talk to us,’ ” he remembered. “He told me there was a fee of $5,000 that had to be paid to the super and building staff.” My contractor, sensing foul play, asked if he could write a check. When the super agreed, my contractor sent a copy of the check to the managing agent. Busted!

Of course, sometimes the neighbors’ banging has nothing to do with construction. My contractor also told me about one memorable walk-through of a downstairs neighbors’ Park Avenue apartment, during which he entered the bedroom and found the neighbors’ college-age son naked in bed with two women. Now that was one crack he never expected to see.

I had an awkward phone conversation with the missus above. She deftly stated that if the problem were indeed caused by their renovation, then their contractor would repair it. I was feeling edgy. The ceiling had a heavy light fixture that at any moment could have come crashing down like the chandelier in Phantom of the Opera and knocked our daughter unconscious while she was brushing her teeth.

We removed the fixture and waited. One got the impression that the neighbors’ contractor was trying to avoid ripping up his clients’ new tiled floor to find the leak, and my husband and I were increasingly convinced that we would have to endure a messy legal battle.

Luckily, that didn’t happen. Workers invaded our living space, and the ceiling was fixed. I don’t have to dread running into our neighbors in the lobby (although there will always be a little undercurrent of unease that doesn’t quite go away).

I’ve renovated two prewar apartments myself, and it’s hard for me to say which is worse: being the alleged perpetrator of damage or the victim of someone else’s renovation fallout. There’s nothing like standing next to a potential plaintiff in the wood-paneled confines of your building’s elevator. And if the trouble should be with a co-op board member, you can pretty much forget about getting a fair trial.

When my first project was underway, the downstairs neighbors complained about—you guessed it—a crack in their dining-room ceiling. When my contractor went down to take a look, he observed that said ceiling hadn’t been painted since the 1920’s. There were profuse paint chips flaking off, which seemed to have no relationship to the alleged fissure. Nevertheless, he generously directed his painter to skim-coat the entire surface.

It seems that renovations often pave the way for aggrieved shareholders to get free touch-ups of their own crumbling apartments. Because spurious claims have become so rampant in prewar buildings, many contractors now insist upon inspecting and photographing downstairs apartments prior to the renovation process, to provide handy recourse when the neighbors claim your jack-hammering caused their “showplace” to look like a $5 million tenement.

Before my friend Hilary commissioned construction in her apartment, which is in an exclusive Upper East Side building, she tried diligently to get such pictures of all the adjoining abodes. “All neighbors consented to the photo session,” she said, “except the lady below us.” As co-op fate would have it, when the renovations were complete, this downstairs neighbor complained that there was damage to her dwelling. Not that she would permit an inspection of the premises. “She presented us with a bill for over $3,000 in cleaning services,” Hilary said. “I think she wanted her apartment cleaned and used this as a way to make us pay. Our contractor paid it because he wanted to make ‘peace in the valley.’”

Some claims are so outlandish that they would send even the most diplomatic renovators screaming to the suburbs. While doing work on their Park Avenue apartment, my friend Linda and her husband were sued for dust damage by their neighbor two floors above. There was no problem with the apartment directly upstairs, but somehow these pixie particles magically wafted through two floors. The neighbor collected $23,000 from the insurance company. Linda later discovered that he had sued other people in the building as well.

Then there was the Upper East Side “eccentric” my contractor encountered after his electrician accidentally broke a fist-sized hole into the apartment adjacent to his client. My contractor sent an apologetic note and flowers. The neighbor said she didn’t want the hole fixed. Nor did she want the mess on the carpet removed. Instead, she billed her renovating neighbors for the following items: 1) the services of three structural engineers to make sure the wall didn’t fall down, 2) a visit to her cardiologist’s office to make sure she wasn’t breathing in any dust and 3) a box of Godiva chocolates, “to calm her nerves.” Although this woman collected insurance money, she is suing her neighbors for $25,000. Nine months later, the schmutz is still on her carpet.

Many rich New Yorkers apparently just take it for granted that litigation is going to ensue. An architect friend of mine told me that in one building he renovated, the work had caused a hairline crack in the neighbor’s wall. One day the architect and contractor ran into the neighbor, who said, “Cracks are one thing, but I’ve just gotta sue you.” He was perfectly polite and didn’t seem at all upset—just resigned. “That kind of thinking is pretty typical of New Yorkers,” said my architect friend. “In this rarefied atmosphere, people are so accustomed to dealing with lawyers.” Then there’s that co-op in the East 70’s where an upstairs neighbor complained that a downstairs neighbors’ retiling of a bathroom two levels below had somehow caused a crack. Upstairs sued for $10,000. Downstairs countersued for the same amount, claiming that the neighbor’s leak had damaged their master-bedroom closet. In the end, both claims were settled.

Even if your relationship with your neighbors remains non-adversarial, don’t forget contending with the building staff, which often wields significant power. The super controls the flow of workers in and out of the building and can choose whether or not to bend the rules to allow workers to stay over the 4:30 p.m. service-elevator closing time (which some staff cling to with NASA-like accuracy). A little greasing of the palms is expected, but my beloved contractor was once the victim of a shakedown at a Central Park West building. “The super said, ‘We’re not going to let you work in the building unless you talk to us,’ ” he remembered. “He told me there was a fee of $5,000 that had to be paid to the super and building staff.” My contractor, sensing foul play, asked if he could write a check. When the super agreed, my contractor sent a copy of the check to the managing agent. Busted!

Of course, sometimes the neighbors’ banging has nothing to do with construction. My contractor also told me about one memorable walk-through of a downstairs neighbors’ Park Avenue apartment, during which he entered the bedroom and found the neighbors’ college-age son naked in bed with two women. Now that was one crack he never expected to see.

When I finally confronted her, Pam admitted that she was sick of feeling like everyone expected her to be flexible and available because she doesn’t have a husband and children. She felt like her commitments were completely undervalued by our culture, whereas mine and those of other mothers were lauded. “I love spending time with my friends and their kids,” she told me, “but it doesn’t seem to be a two-way street. It seems like I’m the one accommodating their needs rather than them fitting into my life.”

Pam told me that her inability to attend my son’s birthday party last year was a perfect example of the way I fail to validate her commitments as a childless person, compared to my “higher-calling” maternal duties. The party was on a Sunday at the Museum of Natural History. As much as I knew she was not going to relish hanging out with T. rex and a bunch of kindergarteners, I assumed that she’d be there. Pam reminded me in advance that she had a commitment on certain Sundays, leading a group of volunteers at a soup kitchen downtown.

When the date approached and she told me that she couldn’t make the party, things got pretty tense. The soup kitchen just didn’t seem like a good enough excuse for missing my son’s sixth birthday. I couldn’t relate at all. But, as Pam said later, “There’s a tendency when you have kids to use your kids’ schedule as a beyond-your-control thing. It’s inflexible.” I finally began to see that I wasn’t being sensitive to my childless friends’ needs. The fact that I don’t even consider it rude anymore when my kids scream in the background while I’m on the phone shows just how dementedly kid-centric I’ve become.

“We’ll have time to talk when the kids are in bed,” I promised Pam when she came over for dinner, as my daughter was complaining that all the popular kids in her class have cell phones. As we sat in my library, sipping cup after cup of herbal tea, not only was I able to focus on issues in Pam’s life, but I could just enjoy the luxury of adult dialogue (disrupted only a few times by my daughter coming in and telling me she couldn’t sleep).

I try to schedule one-on-one “dates” with my childless friends so that we can really talk. But, of course, I’m more apt to want to eat dinner early so that my sitter can get home, while my friend would rather eat later and stay out late. And I’m not sure who’s checking her cell phone more often—me for the kids, or my friend to find out what she’s going to do later that night. The breadth of opportunities in the city for a fabulous, independent lifestyle often grates on a mother who can no longer have leisurely, boozy dinners at Atlantic Grill or see the latest Broadway show.

Meanwhile, I realize that there are some women who are fine with not having kids or actually don’t want to have them. But when single female New Yorkers are wrestling with the highly charged emotional issue of whether or not to become parents, their mother friends need to be ready to duck. My friend Lauren is a very successful businesswoman who was single and childless for years and felt somehow inadequate. “I felt like my life was less meaningful, and that others thought it was, too,” she said. She also knows that she wasn’t very understanding of her mommy chums, just as they weren’t always understanding of her demanding career. “Am I supposed to give up my time just because she has a baby?” Lauren said. “I felt like I had a busy schedule, too.” Sure enough, Lauren would often ask me to do brunch over a weekend, which wasn’t a time I could get away without my kids. I would try to schedule weekday lunches, which occasionally worked for her, but she never wanted to do dinner during the week because her job was so stressful.

Just a few months ago, Lauren became a mother herself, and she now has a completely different perspective on the friendship issue. “I’m really sensitive to my girlfriends now,” she said. She realizes just how demanding motherhood is and also remembers how hard it is on the other side, as she spent many years as a single woman who had different kinds of commitments. “I do expect people to be more accommodating now,” she said. “But I understand if they are busy and they can’t see me.”

Not having a gazillion things to do in this city is tantamount to being labeled a sloth or a loser. Still, even though it’s hard for all New Yorkers to fit in time for friends, the “children” factor seems to inspire particularly acid accusations of insensitivity and selfishness. My friend Betsy, a doctor and divorced mother, is convinced that women without children are actually the most rigid and the hardest to make plans with. “If your life is completely self-centered, you become more inflexible,” she said. But my single male friend Richard thinks that allowances are always made for mothers that aren’t made for those without kids. “People are constantly using their kids as an excuse for everything, especially at work,” he said. “However, as a childless person, I don’t have such an excuse. Saying I want to leave early because my parent, or even a pet, is not feeling well just does not have the same resonance.”

Despite our vastly different social lives, Pam and I have managed to find ways to compromise and still enjoy each other’s company. Last year, we went to Connecticut for a spa weekend. We enjoyed long dinners and relaxing massages and wraps. (I tried not to call home too much, as it usually made me want to get another spa treatment.)

And recently she and Richard spent a day at our country house. We tried to have “adult” conversations during lunch on the deck, but I was constantly running back and forth into the house to retrieve food for my son. When Pam rode back to the city with us that evening, my son fell asleep and, finally, we were able to talk without distraction. I told her about a midtown steakhouse that’s wall-to-wall testosterone. She was going to come over for dinner with the kids this week, but I’ll understand if she’d rather go to the steak place. Even an arrogant banker is probably better company for her than a friend who’s only half-listening as she’s escorting her kid to the potty.

So off I went to Suzanne, a cozy milliner tucked away on 61st Street off Madison. The staffers were busily creating hundreds of hats for the luncheon, having just finished a number of confections for some of Charles and Camilla's wedding guests. I explained that I needed a fabulous hat for the Conservancy luncheon, eventually choosing a pale pink beauty with organza flowers that cost more than a pair of Manolos at Bergdorf Goodman. But walking out of the shop, I felt a familiar mix of excitement and disgust.

I grew up in a rarefied Upper East Side world: attending a white-glove dancing school after school in fifth grade and later getting presented at the Junior League, the Infirmary and the Junior Assembles balls. But though I've kept pictures from my "deb" days, I'm really not part of the New York society scene. I have friends from different backgrounds and interests, many of whom think it is hysterical that I occasionally go to functions like the Conservancy luncheon. I've been known to–– gasp-travel to the outer boroughs. My husband is a Brooklyn boy (albeit from a private school). He wouldn't be happy in a tux, sipping from champagne flutes four nights a week, paying $1,000 a head to party with the junior associates of this or that committee. Most of our friends are smart and successful, but not what would be considered "bright young things." Yet somehow I maintain a small foothold in the benefit world, like the intersecting circles of a Venn diagram. It can be unsettling to try to straddle these disparate groups-to meet those outer-borough friends on a Monday and party with Tinsley Mortimer on a Tuesday.

I'm not alone in my ambivalence. One childhood friend and former debutante who now lives outside New York also indulges in selective socializing, only returning for certain events-with a sense of humor. Although she doesn't go to the Olmsted luncheon, she usually attends "The Bunny Hop," a family Easter party to benefit Memorial Sloan-Kettering. "One child is more smocked than the next," she remarked, and she often feels completely out of it in terms of her own fashion. "If I go to a party and I know Bill Cunningham is going to be there, I panic," she said. "I have no idea what to wear anymore."

As for me, I make sure and wear my irony to the Olmsted luncheon- the event of the year. It's a must-have accessory, albeit one that clashes with my pastel tweeds and gossamer-ribboned chapeau. Every May, when I enter the Vanderbilt Gate at 105th Street and Fifth Avenue, as the crowd of resplendent ladies swarm down the steps like queen bees, I feel like a pretender. I wonder, "What am I doing here?" while the photographers elbow their way to the A-list grande dames. I'm like an extra in a movie-in full costume but with absolutely nothing to say, blending into the background. In this crowd of Styles-section regulars, I'm just another Chanel purse.

And yet there's a rush of excitement as I delicately swoop up a crystal glass of San Pellegrino on the way in. While the gardens are dripping with daffodils and crab-apple blossoms, it's the women who are truly enchanting to behold. Some hats are tasteful and exquisite, while others are topped with topiary-like monstrosities that even Pale Male would have rejected as bad real estate. This tradition is a lot of fun, even if it feels fusty. We can imagine for a short time that we are in another era, when the clicking of elegant heels wasn't drowned out by the clicking of P.D.A.'s.

Once inside the tented luncheon area, I assess the enormity of this "happening," which usually includes about 1,000 guests. It's a kick to read who is sitting at which table-except last year, when some of the most photographed young society women in the city had their table right next to ours, with extra favors strewn around it. Trying not to feel insignificant next to these women is an effort, but when I realize that I am privileged to be at this party at all, I feel my ironic shell slowly melt into sheer pleasure at the Glorious Food–catered spread. I enjoy catching up with the women at my table, even though we haven't maintained a real friendship throughout the rest of the year. We know that assorted notables are speaking-the Mayor, the Parks Commissioner, the honorees-but we're usually too busy chatting and people-watching to hear a thing they're saying. Plus, I'm very involved in my recurring role as the lone woman who actually finishes the food on her plate and eats more than one chocolate-covered strawberry. That could explain why I've had to let the waist out on many of my spring suits.

Taking home the gift-bag booty is always a treat. One year we received jewelry from the Joan Rivers collection, and then there are the Conservancy pens-perfect to whip out at parties when an "It" girl you've been introduced to thinks you're socially invisible-and, most significantly, the Conservancy umbrella, that large dark green number with the wooden and brass handle that has become ubiquitous on the Upper East Side. Toting that umbrella around is like wearing your membership in an exclusive club on your arm. People who might normally snub me start air-kissing me when I'm holding that thing.

When the luncheon ends, I'm always a little sad. Nagging doubts resurface about my social choices. I often wonder if I should have made more of an effort to become involved with the charity circuit, with these women who seem to have such charmed lives. Not that I could keep up with them financially-but having grown up thinking I was a part of that world, I've never been able or willing to completely reject it. I suppose that it's possible to "dabble" in New York high society, but it's hard. I'm really never sure if I'm on the inside looking out or on the outside looking in. But at least I know I've got a great hat.