Miracle on 75th — VICKY NGUYEN

The good news? Good Doctor got his second dose of the Pfizer vaccine after a 24 hour shift at work. The bad news, he texted me on his way home to say he’d be a little later because:

Left Airpod Pro clinging on for dear life on a mesa of trash underneath a Manhattan storm sewer

Me: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Apparently he left work still wearing his N95 mask. He did not observe the Biblical rules of stop, drop and never make any sudden movements while wearing Air Pods if you’re in motion on a New York city street.

Instead he just took off the mask like a normal person walking on a country road and of course both Airpod Pros went flying from his ears. The Good Doc apparently still has some cat like reflexes. He managed to reach out and snatch the right Airpod midair. Then he stuck out his left foot to try to cushion the fall of the other Airpod, but succeeded only in kicking it. He watched it fly back up and further forward before it landed and slow rolled…right into a storm drain.

Intervention:

Take a closer look. Some other perhaps equally unfortunate New Yorker blessedly left a wire hanger wrapped onto the grate. THIS VERY GRATE above his Airpod! So instead of walking all the way home to look for a tool, The Good Doc got down on his hands and knees, unwrapped The Good Samaritan hanger and got to work. One false move and he would have poked that little thing off the trash heap down into eternal darkness where Airpods go to die.

But slowly and meticulously he rescued Leftie, raised it up to thank the gods, and a woman walking by saw him and crowed, “Good for YOU” in that raspy, unmistakable, extra loud for such a small person New York little old lady voice.

To my surprise, I received this photo text 8 minutes after his first one.

Reversal of fortune indeed.

Reminds me of the time we bought a Whole Foods Christmas tree and tried to drag it home on a tiny dolly only to have the tree stump fall off every 5 steps and then we found a piece of metal scrap in a trash pile, and jimmy rigged a perfect wagon for it. Could’ve walked a marathon with that contraption.

New York City giveth in 2021.