The Sky is Falling

Throughout my time in NYC I became increasingly wary of very loud, sudden blasts of sound that caused my heart to jump into my mouth or for me to wet my pants. At times these sounds made me think that I'd die in NYC due to a heart attack brought on by any number of these unexpected events: dumpsters being tossed around by garbage trucks like beanie babies, cargo vans careening down side streets with a quick burst of speed, assorted crashes and explosions on construction sites and even air conditioners falling out of windows.

This last example continues to freak me out to this day.

My cousin Sarah had called me to tell me that she would be in the city and wanted to get together for lunch. The following day we met at Duke's on 22nd Street btw. Park and Lex. At the time Sarah had not yet moved to NYC but was looking for an apartment and we were strategizing on where she might look. Since our meeting took place during the week, I was set to return to the office when we were finished so we started walking north on Park so that she could get on the 6 train uptown and I could take a left onto 23rd and get back to my office. We walked on the right side of the sidewalk (of course) on the east side of Park putting us closer to the buildings and not the actual street. As we passed the midway point of the Park Avenue block btw. 22nd and 23rd streets we heard this impossibly loud crash that made us involuntarily duck and cringe in reaction. We both turned around and saw that right where we had passed only moments before, a rusty old air-conditioner had slid out of an office building window and shattered onto the sidewalk. Bits of plastic and metal were everywhere nearby. We were both stunned as we saw what had transpired realizing instantly that it could have easily fallen on one of us.
"Oh my God!", Sarah exclaimed.
"Holy Shit!", I said.

But we were speechless.

However, in true New York fashion we didn't hang around and try to figure out what had happened and why this potentially near-fatal accident had occured - but instead kept walking and eventually resumed our conversation (although not with the same enthusiasm as before).

A few more paces and we said our good-byes at the 23rd street subway station but this time with a rueful smile I said "Bye, be careful".
"You too." she said in response.