Oh What a Night

My boiling pot of water was interrupted by the 4th fire alarm in 3 weeks at our building. I took it as divine intervention - knowing that the dirty pot would sit in the sink for who knows how long, I turned the stove off and proceeded down the 20 flights of stairs. When the alarm in our building goes off, the elevators automatically return to the bottom floor and don't move. I'm just nerdy enough to actually leave my apartment because I know my luck, and the first time I decide to stay I'll get trapped in a real blazer and end up being "that guy" hanging out the 18th floor window screaming for help.

It had been raining, no pouring, with marble sized hail about an hour earlier, but when I walked outside there was a break in the rain. I didn't feel like standing in front of the building waiting for the barrage of fire trucks to arrive, and I was hungry and needed to kill a little time so I decided to walk down the street to my local Indian restaurant for dinner. They were pretty busy with it being Friday night, and I had to sit at a table in the middle of the room. At least my server gave me a seat with a view out the window onto the street. Sitting in the restaurant, I saw a bicyclist almost get hit by a car.

The car had pulled into a driveway to turn around, started backing up and initially didn't see the dude on the bike. He stopped in time, and it was a good thing too, as the momentum from the collision likely would have propelled the bicyclist right under the wheels of a bus heading in the opposite direction of the street. You know you've been watching too much Law and Order when you immediately start playing out a scenario in your mind where the biker gets killed by the oncoming bus, and the driver who hit him speeds off. Of course, we'd learn later in the episode, that this 'accident' was no accident at all, but rather a paid hit on the biker - a man who worked as a delivery boy and always rode his bike home down the same street on his way home form work. Turns out, his loving wife had taken out a $3 Million life insurance policy in his name just 2 weeks earlier, and the guy driving the car? A catholic priest, who cracks under interrogation and admits he took the bribe money to help his parish pay for the treatment of a diabetic child.

Mid-way though my chicken korma and naan, the rains begin again. The sky looked threatening during my walk to the joint, but it looked like I'd have plenty of time to eat and walk home before it started to rain again. I was wrong. At first it was a mere sprinkle, then as I was sipping the last gulp of diet coke and signing the bill it began to pour again. I sat at the table for a bit, hoping the rain would die down, but it was no use. I;d already paid the bill and was expected to be on my way. I couldn't stay seated at the table any longer without imposing, and so decided to suck it up and get wet. And did I get wet. I crossed no less than 4 impromptu rivers that had sprung up at hillsides, driveways, intersections and the like.

When I got home (no flames at least), I had to towel off and completely change clothes. Its been a few hours now, and I;m sufficiently dry. Now I think I'll watch The Squid and the Whale. It takes place in Brooklyn (Park Slope to be exact) don't cha know.