I just absolutely (and unintentionally) flattened a young woman rounding a corner at the subway station.
I think it is (or, at the very least, should be) common sense that the rules of walking follow the rules of the road, for the most part; that’s how I live my life anyway.
So anyway, I’m hauling my a** off the subway and down the stairs so I can make my train that leaves in exactly 70 seconds.
I planned each of these crucial 70 seconds down to the last instant. I do this 70 second sprint every single day of my life. If it takes me 71 seconds, I miss my train. If I miss it, it takes another 45 minutes to get home.
Every day, these 70 seconds determine whether or not I have another 45 minutes of life to live.
So yes—I haul a** to make this train every day of my life.
I have a ritual for good luck where I play the same song from the same exact location every time the 70 seconds begin when I step out of the subway car.
I’ve calculated every second of the journey and the song so meticulously that every beat in the song matches a footstep in real life. When the chorus hits, I hit the bottom of the stairs and begin the all-out sprint towards my train.
Today, as with every day, I had to turn right at the bottom of the stairs.
Not expecting anyone to be right there (because that’s against the rules of walking—you can only cut sharply around your own direction’s corner to prevent head-on collisions), my body was met with a smallish woman—maybe 5’3—who herself was not expecting to be met with the human equivalent of a freight train.
As anyone might expect in a situation like this, I had significantly more momentum than someone maybe a third of my size.
When you hit a baseball with a bat, which one forces momentum into the other? Does the ball have any effect on the bat, or does the bat have virtually all the effect on the ball?
That’s what happened here.
I was totally unaffected by her tininess, but she was absolutely obliterated by me.
I think she got whiplash, if I’m being totally honest.
The force knocked her backwards, so she was about to fall, but luckily I had the reflexes to put my hand behind her and catch her.
Great—I saved the day. I’d love to stick around and chat—but I’m now about 45 seconds mark of my journey and I should be closer to the 55 second mark by now.
“Woah, that was a close one…” I say, nonchalantly.
No, this wasn’t a “close one.” This was as much of a “close one” as the attack on Pearl Harbor was a “close one.”
She begins yelling expletives at me, the likes of which I (thankfully) have the decency to omit from my rendition of the story.
I ignore her. *We know whose fault this was.
*Hint: Hers. It was HER fault.
Until next time,
Michael J. Erickson, CEO & Co-Founder
