The Tree and the Bicycle Rickshaw
I have come to accept the fact that, now that I am a mom, I will never really get my shit together again. One of the most frequent examples of my untogetherness, and the one that's most entertaining to my colleagues, is my inability to select my home address when I shop online.
I have had a week’s worth of groceries delivered to my work address, and the Fresh Direct boxes are always dumped just outside my boss’s office door. Happily, my colleagues are fun people, who appreciate the opportunity to be smug. “Carrie, do you think that I could have a roll of toilet paper and a potato pancake?”
I keep my work address on file at Amazon and at my online grocer for office supplies and catering. So sometimes when I shop in a hurry, I click the wrong delivery address. This is precisely what happened a few weeks ago when I ordered a splendid, seven-foot, pre-lighted white Christmas tree.
It came during a week of rain, and in the first days of the influx of tourists who come to NYC at the holiday season. Cabs and car services were booked, so I decided I would carry the tree home using my little office rolling cart.
But two blocks into a ten-block walk home, I realized that I was going to drop the tree, run over rush-hour pedestrians, or get the box all soggy from the rain. And that is when I saw him: the bicycle rickshaw driver, stopped and chatting on his cell phone on the corner of 39th and Fifth.
“Do you do deliveries?” I asked him, thinking that I could just hand him the tree and have him deliver it to my building. (No self-respecting New Yorker would ever ride in one of these contraptions.)
“I'll be happy to take it, but you'll need to ride with me to hold the box in place,” said the driver.
So I hopped into the cart with my tree and took a death ride down Fifth Avenue in bus exhaust, rain, and rush hour traffic. The tree and I were home in a heartbeat.
This is what I have learned the hard way: once you lose it, you never really get it back. You never know exactly where your keys are or if you have baby boogers on your jacket lapel. But because your life becomes so topsy-turvy, you get to play things fast and loose, making up your own rules as you go along. And in the process of making up and discarding rules, you get to enjoy experiences you would normally miss.
I never would have ridden in a bicycle rickshaw, but necessity forced the issue, and for ten minutes, I got to be a tourist in my own city.
Comments
I lived in NYC one summer and enjoyed a multitude of experiences. Loved your blog...it gave me a feel of the city and some worthwhile advice, too. Thanks.
Posted by: Elizabeth | December 14, 2006 12:32 AM
"So I hopped into the cart with my tree and took a death ride down Fifth Avenue in bus exhaust, rain, and rush hour traffic."
You will think of this and smile everytime you take the tree out of storage :).
Posted by: niki | December 14, 2006 10:48 AM