My friend Daria and I had dinner at her dorm on 5th Ave and 10th Street. I call her Daria because she is very much like that MTV cartoon character. She is smart, dry and often dressed in the same type of clothes, down to the thick, heavy, chunky black boots. Daria's voice never modulated much and unless she was anxious or scared and she made me laugh to no end. We were both misfits. Her roommates hated her and I, for the most part, didn't want to socialize much with mine. But, then again, I always have had a way with picking the misfits to hang with. Daria, born and raised in North New Jersey of mixed race parents, has an open face covered in freckles and a smile that lights her face and subsequently mine. She also has a devious sense of humor.
So Daria and I finished dinner and decided to walk around and take in some of the holiday spirit. Window shopping was one of our favorite past times. We would often meet for lunch in the dining hall across from Washington Square Park (The Jumping Dorm since so many committed suicide by jumping there) and after lunch we would stop and watch the dogs play in the dog run and then decide to skip class in order to walk around the city.
So on this cold, wintery December evening we decided to see what NYC had to offer us in regards to Xmas shopping. We walked around the Village a bit and, uninspired, decided to head back to her room to watch a movie or something. Standing on the southwest corner of 5th Ave and 10th Street, we were about to cross and go into the dorm when suddenly there was a crash and a flaming mattress came hurtling out of a third floor window of the dorm. There wasn't nearly as much chaos as one would have suspected. for a flaming mattress coming from a window and landing in the middle of 5th Ave. Luckily there were no cars coming at the time. We stood, transfixed. Some students trickled out of the dorm to see what was happening. A security guard came out, talking frantically on his walkie-talkie. The sound of fire engines echoed in the distance. A pair of student came over and stood next to us. "Do you know what happened?" I asked. "Some kid dropped his menorah on the bed. The mattress caught fire and, well..." and she gestured to the bed sitting sadly with a burned black spot in the middle. The pair wandered off and we stood watching the firemen race down the street and hop out of their engines to see the effects of Hanukkah in a private university.
"What happened?" a voice behind us asked. I turned and there, walking their cute little dog, were Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker. I had been told they lived in the area but had never seen them. I gasped a little bit and then quickly recovered, pointed at the mattress and caught them up on the story. I don't think I possessed the ability to look them in the face when talking to them. They laughed, wished us a happy holiday and walked on.
Daria and I decided that these were signs that the night held something special in store for us and could not be wasted hanging around in the dorm. So we ventured uptown and caught all the holiday decorations in midtown. Nothing beat a flaming mattress in the middle of 5th Ave. It was it's own little island out there in the storm.
No comments:
Post a Comment