The perils of pedestrianism

Garrison Keillor's Podcast

Prairie Home Productions

Society & Culture, Fiction, Comedy Fiction, Improv, Comedy

4.8 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 5 April 2025

⏱️ 7 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

And so you have men on bikes racing through narrow gaps on jammed avenues with a backpack full of shrimp curry and pad thai, meanwhile an elderly man (me) on his way to the drugstore to pick up some Alka-Seltzer stands on the curb, peering into the darkness for some glimmer of light, some sign of motion, some clue as to approaching bicycles. This is the adventure of life in Manhattan, serious bodily injury from bicyclists delivering exotic food at high speed to stay-at-home software programmers.This is why I pay extra to live in a doorman building. Felipe will deal with the guy on the bike, accept the charred wok vegetable medley and the crispy calamari and drunken noodles with peanut sauce and hand the bag to Lenny, who will bring it up to the 12th floor and leave it at our door and the food will still be hot though the restaurant is a mile away. This is a remarkable amenity. It’s not the cold weather that keeps my sweetie and me indoors, it isn’t the fear of stickups, it’s the fear of being run down by bicyclemen delivering food to other people. The fear of lying in the street while covered with garlic sauce.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	It's been a couple of months since the New York City Council legalized jaywalking in town,
0:16.5	and nobody has noticed this because everybody was doing it anyway.
0:23.1	New Yorkers have been jaywalking since before there were stoplights.
0:28.4	No New Yorker would stand on the sidewalk with no traffic in sight and wait for the walk sign.
0:36.5	Nobody.
0:42.2	Not even Baptists or accountants or people suffering from severe clinical anxiety. Only tourists from the Great Plains would stand and wait for the light
0:51.0	to change, and this is a clue to pickpockets to lift their wallets.
0:57.0	The main hazard to pedestrians in the city is bicyclists who j-ride wildly,
1:06.0	flying down the bike lanes, whizzing through red lights, bikes and scooters whipping silently,
1:17.1	through the dark riders dressed in black like vampires riding the wrong way on a one-way street,
1:25.7	and especially treacherous, are the delivery bikes.
1:31.2	New York cops ride around in squad cars, and during rush hour a squad car has zero chance
1:38.5	of catching a speeding outlaw bicyclist, racing through the three-foot gap between parked cars and cars stuck
1:49.1	in traffic.
1:51.3	The delivery bikes are busy because eating in became popular during the pandemic, ordering
1:57.5	food online from a restaurant to be delivered and eating at home.
2:03.6	Many people who work from home also eat in.
2:08.6	An invisible population that only ventures outdoors when they need to see their ophthalmologist or have a tooth-filled, pale, stiff-legged people who are uneasy in a crowd and wear masks and avoid eye contact.
2:30.3	New Yorkers, of course, expect prompt service, even ordering exotic tie and Indian dishes with
2:40.6	special instructions as to spice and sauce and whether broiled or steamed.
2:47.7	They phone in the order and they expect it to be at their door on the 15th floor
2:55.3	delivered by Carlos the doorman within 20 minutes, or they'll call the Muglai Temple Cafe
	...

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