On a day when I was out walking for the purpose of shopping, I was stopped at a street by a red light.<\/p>\n
This is a town with staggered lighting for cars, as well as walkers. If you keep up a certain pace, you\u2019re sure to hit nothing but green lights at each crossing.<\/p>\n
Not that day. And because a truck was parked to my left, blocking my view of the street and oncoming cars, I couldn\u2019t risk crossing on that red. Even though the cross streets in my neighborhood are not heavily trafficked and are fairly safe to cross even at a red light.<\/p>\n
But, as I mentioned, I couldn\u2019t see the street. I had choices: remain safely on the sidewalk until the light turned green, or creep out v-e-r-y slowly in front of that truck and v-e-r-y carefully bend my head forward until…some speeding Uber came along and took my head off. You know what I mean, right?<\/p>\n
I made my choice: waited for the light to change. Until I spotted a man across the street who had no impediment to his view of potential oncoming cars.<\/p>\n
He was pretty fat and smoking a cig \u2013 bad combination, but I made a decision to overlook his health problems; he could see down the street and I could not. I decided if he crossed, so could I. Safely. And if he crossed slowly, I didn\u2019t have to scamper like a crazy little fool. Strolling would be in my cards.<\/p>\n
So I watched the guy and then suddenly thought, \u201cWait, what if he\u2019s decided to commit suicide by walking in front of a speeding truck?\u201d<\/p>\n
You might consider my thought a reason to be concerned about my mental health. But to me this fancy was only a sign I\u2019ve been watching way too many mysteries on MhZ, et al. A lot of the mysteries start with, yes, a dead body, who seems to be a suicide victim until the detectives figure out, no, this is a murder.<\/p>\n
I try to watch TV while reading The New Yorker, so I can pretend I’m not entirely wasting my time,* but combining articles with TV mysteries presents problems, because, hey, I read a short humor article about, say, the Pied Piper of Hamelin, and by the time I finish and look at the TV, the cops have some suspect in an interrogation room, and I\u2019m thinking, \u201cWho the hell is that?\u201d<\/p>\n
Sure, I can rewind but watching characters go backward at top speed does some damage to the verisimilitude. And I’m a fan of verisimilitude. Which is how I found myself in a new career, as an advisor to mystery series on TV. (More to follow.)<\/p>\n
*Did I ever tell you about the time during dinner when we three kids were popping up from the table to poke our heads at the nearby TV screen, and then popping quickly back to the table — because something crucial was on TV and we didn’t want to miss it?<\/p>\n
My mom kicked our TV set in.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On a day when I was out walking for the purpose of shopping, I was stopped at a street by a red light. This is a town with staggered lighting for cars, as well as walkers. If you keep up … Continue reading