Metropolitan Diary

I don't usually read the Metropolitan Diary in the New York Times, for reasons that will be obvious to anyone who has ever read it. But this story turned up last fall, and every now and then I think of it. It always makes me smile.

It was a beautiful Sunday, so I went to sit by the pool in Central Park with my dog, Tonka. We were relaxing and taking in the sun when Tonka suddenly lifted her head and stared a few benches down, where an apparently unremarkable middle-aged man with a large bag had just taken a seat.

Then I saw a large raccoon climbing up the far side of a low fence behind the man (this must have been what Tonka noticed). It got to the top of the fence, reached out, and tapped the man on the shoulder.

The man turned around, said, “Oh, I didn’t see you!” and then found what he was looking for in his bag: a sandwich, which he gave to the raccoon, who took it, climbed back down his side of the fence, held it in his paws, and ate it delicately.

The man looked up to see me staring.

“I didn’t see him,” he said to me, apologetically. “That’s why he had to tap me on the shoulder.”

Read it on the NY Times website.