moment

Nick and I had a moment yesterday, one of those funny, odd moments that make you laugh out loud and wonder how humanity manages to exist at all.

We were walking south on the west side of Broadway after meeting up on our usual corner after work, on the prowl for a cheap beer. We had decided on the Abbey, a perennial favorite of ours despite its mediocre food, on the east side of Broadway at 105th Street.

The streetlight changed and Nick, ever the pragmatic one, said, "Let's cross."

"I always walk on that side of the street," I shot back, and kept walking south.

Nick took this in stride, but after a moment he looked at me and said, "That doesn't make any sense at all. What are you talking about??"

And what I'd meant, really, was something along the lines of, "Nick, the inertia is kicking in big time right now. We are on this side of the street now, and we will remain on this side of the street because it is easier than changing directions at this particular point in time."

But rather than admitting to this insanity, I tried to act as if I usually walk on that side of the street, and so on this fine and beautiful evening had decided that we would be wild and daring and would instead walk on this side of the street.

I tried to explain all of this to him, in all its ridiculousness, and this led, in typical Nick and Emily fashion, to a wide-ranging and probably nonsensical discussion of the differences in the ways men and women communicate, incorporating gentle mockery, grandiose generalizations, and even an inappropriate reference or two to certain unmentionable sexual situations.

Eventually we got to the bar and turned our attention to far more important things, like what kind of beers were currently available on tap and what exactly is a superdelegate, anyway?