Beginning this strange night with going to the Jekyll and Hyde Club for dinner was not the best idea I’ve had. My sister wanted to go to Carnegie Deli, a place that we had been on every New York visit since birth, but I wanted to try something new and exciting. I had seen little rickshaws wheeling around the city advertising for the restaurant, and it seemed like it would be a cool experience. I should have known that at places like this you’re paying completely for the experience and not for the food at all. It would have been a neat place to go just for drinks, but the cuisine was over priced and poorly made.

There was a wax model of Siamese twins with clear blue eyes and curly blonde hair. As their performance started, my sister and I left our table to get a closer look. For some reason it really grossed me out. I tapped my sister and said that I suddenly had the urge to throw up. She got a surprised look on her face as she stated that she had the same reaction. Just as we were talking about how gross this display was, the twins started burping back and forth. We were done with our meals for the evening and my stomach was in my throat.

After our uneaten meals were taken away, my sister had an entire drink tray dropped on her back by our waitress. The waitress exclaimed, “It’s okay, all the glasses were empty!” Yeah, they were empty, now that you spilled them all over her. Then the weirdest thing occurred when one of the costumed actors perched on the railing above me, shaking his bottom in my face. He shrieked about how I had the best view in the house and I turned away uncomfortably. Then I thought he was resting his chin atop my head, but after the fact my sister and her friend told me that he was sticking his tongue out. This man had just licked my hair.

Upon leaving the restaurant, us three girls talked about the horrible experience we had just encountered. We decided that we wanted to check out the Hershey’s store in Times Square. As we made it to the crosswalk, we were all astonished. Right before our eyes, a woman darted into the intersection and got hit by an oncoming taxi. We watched in horror as her body fell rigidly to the ground. We all swore that we saw her head bounce off the pavement. Her baby boy and its father were on the opposite edge of the street. Luckily, the baby’s carriage was facing away from the accident and the baby didn’t witness his mother being struck.

The woman sat up, and was thankfully alive and not bleeding on the exterior of her body. People who had witnessed the accident, however, wouldn’t let her move any further in case of internal damage. Other cars didn’t seem to care about the situation as they wove incautiously by her. I went over to see whether we could move her to the side of the street. Not that traffic mattered at this second, but I wanted to make sure any other passing vehicles wouldn’t hit her. There was a group of foreign men standing around her talking about “Stupid Americans.” I listened into their conversation and apparently the reason why this woman ran into the road in the first place was because she wanted a hot dog from the stand across the street. The men stood watching as she put herself and her baby’s life in danger for some street food. The woman ended up being fine, but what if she had been less fortunate?  

Always,

Alena Netia Horowitz