To The Man With The Large Rolling Suitcase on Third Avenue

I appreciate your fast pace, Large Rolling Suitcase Man, and I also appreciate that you’re in a hurry to get to wherever it is you’re going. But you’re at a disadvantage, you see, because unlike normal pedestrians who are hurrying down the sidewalk, you are hurrying down the sidewalk with a large rolling suitcase.

Though this should inhibit you from walking as quickly as others around you, you rush on, undaunted. You won’t even break your pace for the steep curbs. Instead, you actually gain speed as you approach the curb and launch your large rolling suitcase off of it, and it teeters and wobbles alarmingly from side to side when its plastic wheels hit the ground, causing various passersby to jump out of the way for fear of being knocked over.

Your large rolling suitcase and your long, urgent strides seem to be taking up the entire sidewalk, and the other pedestrians note your frustrated sighs as you jostle for position, pushing yourself and your large rolling suitcase to the front of the crowds waiting for the light to change, uncaring of whose knees you graze, whose briefcases you bump, whose toes you nearly run over. It’s clear that the only thing that matters to you is getting your large rolling suitcase safely to its destination.

When you finally dart suddenly into the lobby of a very tall building along Third Avenue, causing your suitcase to tip up on one wheel, I can feel a palpable relief among the crowds walking along, like a sudden change in air pressure. A woman mutters under her breath, “Thank God,” and I silently agree.