A New York Moment

Ok...so last night I am heading uptown to visit my sister for a belated B'day dinner. I am walking up Lexington Ave and approaching the corner of Lex and 72nd.

I can see that the walk light is red and there are three women waiting on the corner to cross.

All three are late 30's - late 40's.

They clearly don't know each other.

They are all white and middle to upperclass.

I am about 20 -30 feet away from them when the woman in the middle drops to the ground.

When they say "drops like a sack of potatoes" this is what they mean.

There was no catalyst, she just dropped to the ground.

The two women on either side of her? THEY DON'T EVEN FLINCH! They don't look! Nothing.

I of course was already running to the lady to see if she was ok...you know..because I am a REALLY GOOD PERSON.

By the time i get there, one of the women has just taken off, the other turns to check on the fallen one only AFTER i am running up saying "Are you ok?"

I wanted to say, "hey you selfish twit, why not be a little quicker with the 'are you all right' when you are standing right next to the person!"

It was bizarre The woman who fell was ok. She was dazed and just sort of fainted. One minute fine, the next on tea ground. She said she had just had 2 cups of coffee really fast. I said it sounded like she was dehydrated. She said she would sit down and rest when she got to her yoga class that she was teaching. Dear lord.

The two weird things for me were:
1. watching someone drop like that. It was crazy!
2. Watching two women, who should not have felt threatened in anyway by the fainting woman, completely ignore her when she needed help.

Now, I already beat myself up about walking past homeless or crazy people everyday who need help and not stopping...i go to therapy, i deal with not being the best person on the planet, but i found it amazing that people of the same social and economic class in the safe world of the upper east side, would abandon each other so quickly.

Barf!

Lesson, don't faint in NYC.