The perils of pedestrianism

And so you have men on bikes racing through narrow gaps on jammed avenues with a backpack full of shrimp curry and pad thai, meanwhile an elderly man (me) on his way to the drugstore to pick up some Alka-Seltzer stands on the curb, peering into the darkness for some glimmer of light, some sign of motion, some clue as to approaching bicycles. This is the adventure of life in Manhattan, serious bodily injury from bicyclists delivering exotic food at high speed to stay-at-home software programmers.This is why I pay extra to live in a doorman building. Felipe will deal with the guy on the bike, accept the charred wok vegetable medley and the crispy calamari and drunken noodles with peanut sauce and hand the bag to Lenny, who will bring it up to the 12th floor and leave it at our door and the food will still be hot though the restaurant is a mile away. This is a remarkable amenity. It’s not the cold weather that keeps my sweetie and me indoors, it isn’t the fear of stickups, it’s the fear of being run down by bicyclemen delivering food to other people. The fear of lying in the street while covered with garlic sauce.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
It's been a couple of months since the New York
City Council legalized jaywalking in town, and nobody has noticed
this because everybody was doing it anyway. New Yorkers have
been jaywalking since before there were stoplights. No New Yorker

(00:30):
would stand on the sidewalk with no traffic in sight
and wait for the walk sign. Nobody, not even baptists
or accountants or people suffering from severe clinical anxiety. Only
tourists from the Great Plains would stand and wait for

(00:50):
the light to change, and this is a clue to
pickpockets to lift their wallets. The main hazard to pedestrians
in the city is bicyclists who jay ride wildly, flying
down the bike lanes, whizzing through red lights, bikes and

(01:13):
scooters whipping silently through the dark, riders dressed in black
like vampires, riding the wrong way on a one way street,
and especially treachers are the delivery bikes. New York cops
ride around in squad cars, and during rush hour, a

(01:36):
squad car has zero chance of catching a speeding outlaw
bicyclist racing through the three foot gap between parked cars
and cars stuck in traffic. The delivery bikes are busy
because eating in became popular during the pandemic, ordering food

(01:58):
online from a rest run to be delivered, and eating
at home. Many people who work from home also eat
in an invisible population that only ventures outdoors when they
need to see their ophthalmologist. Have a tooth filled, pale,

(02:20):
stiff legged, people who are uneasy in a crowd and
wear masks and avoid eye contact. New Yorkers, of course,
expect prompt service, even ordering exotic tie and Indian dishes
with special instructions as to spice and sauce and whether

(02:46):
broiled or steamed. They phone in the order and they
expect it to be at their door on the fifteenth floor,
delivered by Carlos the doorman, within twenty minutes, or they'll
call the Moogli Temple Cafe and threaten legal action. And

(03:06):
so you have men on bikes racing through narrow gaps
on jammed avenues with a backpack full of shrimp curry
and podtai. Meanwhile, an elderly man me on his way
to the drug store to pick up some alka seltzer,

(03:27):
stands on the curb, peering into the darkness for some
glimmer of light, some sign of motion, some clue as
to approaching bicycles. This is the adventure of life in Manhattan.
Serious bodily injuries from bicyclists delivering exotic food at high speed.

(03:55):
To stay at home software programmers. This is why I
pay extra to live in a doorman building. Felipe will
deal with the guy on the bike. He will accept
the charred walk vegetable medley and the crispy calamari and

(04:19):
the drunken noodles with peanut sauce, and he will hand
the bag to Lenny, who will bring it up to
the twelfth floor and leave it at our door, and
the food will still be hot, though the restaurant is
a mile away. This is a remarkable amenite. It's not

(04:43):
the cold weather that keeps my sweetheart and I indoors.
It isn't the fear of stick ups. It's the fear
of being run down by bicyclemen delivering food to other people,
the fear of lying in the street while covered with

(05:05):
garlic sauce. Nonetheless, I like New York. I'm glad to
be done with lawn mowing and snow shoveling. We live
two blocks from the subway where the downtown train will
take me to the main library or Lincoln Center or
lunch in the village. And then there are the little

(05:29):
human contacts that make your day, like my visit to
the walk in clinic on Columbus Avenue to have a
plastic pad that had become detached from my hearing aid,
removed from where it got stuck deep in my ear canal.

(05:51):
Not a critical problem, but you can't just walk up
to someone on the street and say, could you a
pencil and get something out of my ear? You can't.
So I sat in the waiting room. I was called
in to be examined, and I met a doctor who was,

(06:13):
I could tell, sort of amused at the problem. The
pad was way in deep in the ear canal thanks
to my trying to dig it out with my finger.
I said to her, you are a little over educated
for this, but where else could I go? And she laughed.

(06:36):
She had a nurse hold of light and she reached
in with tiny forceps and she extracted it. She was
from Seattle, she lived in New York for twenty years.
She liked it, so do I. No matter what's your problem,

(06:58):
there's someone in this city who can deal with it
You just need to watch out for bikes.