New York Times
22 July 2015
Metropolitan Diary
By Bill Weiss
Dear Diary:
The scene: Roosevelt Avenue, Queens, subway station
at rush hour on a rainy evening
A train pulls into the station. Amidst the usual
hustle and bustle, a clatter rings out when someone drops an umbrella on the
platform and moves on without realizing the loss.
An alert woman standing near the umbrella quickly
scoops it up and, thinking fast, executes a perfect shovel-pass, tossing it
into the train car just in time to beat the closing doors. What a kind gesture;
now the owner and the umbrella will be reunited.
The woman makes just one miscalculation. The owner
hasn’t just entered the train car. He’s exited, and now he is standing on the
platform, watching dumbfounded as the train speeds away with his umbrella
aboard!