There I was, minding my own business, as usual.
“This is a nightmare,” a man said. “I feel like we’re going to war.”
I was on my way north, out for a leisurely stroll along North Lake Shore Drive on one of those gloriously springlike afternoons that took place in August.
“A nightmare,” the man said again, and though he didn’t seem to be talking to anyone but himself, I–being a compassionate sort–stopped and said, “What is? What’s a nightmare?”
He stared at me, threateningly. I stared at the contraption in his hands, as he drove metal stakes into the ground in front of a high-rise.
“Having to do this,” he said. “After getting these stakes in, I’ll have to attach ropes to them, just to protect the grass from the invaders–the Air & Water Show people. Tomorrow they start arriving.”
Are they a bad bunch?
“Not all of them,” he said. “But in the seven years I’ve worked at this building, we’ve had people steal flowers and leave garbage all over the place. This is all we can do, and it’s not enough.”
I told him I was sorry, even though I thought that it was a little much for people living in those lakefront abodes to want flowers and clean stretches of grass when they already had such spectacular views.
