Stop here

The days I head out to the beach always devolve into a mad rush. It's the combination of putting a multi-use weekend bag together by a train-departure dictated deadline and the need to, in addition, get all weekend errands done by that time.

Yesterday was no exception. I decided to go out a day early. As soon as I did I remembered all I had to do before leaving town. It had, after all, only been a few days since I returned from Virginia.

There was a stack of laundry to tackle and some boxes in my now stressfully messy bedroom to unpack. I needed a pedicure. I had to coordinate with a messenger coming from my former lawyer’s office who had a refund check (see ‘Pennies from heaven’ for details) for me. Finally my phone charger had chosen that morning to break. The phone was almost dead. There would be no where to replace it out east and a weekend out there without a cell phone means already difficult to make connections would now be impossible.

However as the day ticked on and I raced through my things to do list, it became more and more apparent that I would not have time to go to the Sprint store in Union Square.

The phone, as if reading my stress level, began to beep ominously as it neared death. Battery Low, Recharge Soon, it read. If only I could, you pint-sized Jewish mother you, I thought.

At 3 p.m. I was done with everything and had to be out the door in no less than five minutes. Well, I thought, this weekend will just end up being a social experiment of sorts.

I told the cab driver to take me to Grand Central and then added, on a whim, that on the off chance we saw a Sprint store en route I would ask him to let me out early.

I live on 21st street and 3rd avenue. Grand Central is on 42nd between Park and Madison. The driver took me up third. It was 3:25. I had to be in Grand Central by 3:30. We were on 41st street and 3rd avenue when I looked out the window and wouldn’t you know it, there was a Sprint store on the corner.

“Stop here,” I said.

A half hour later I was sitting on a train out to the beach, phone charging at my side.