a peaceful lunch at an italian cafe

(Old email from 7.15.04)

Have your laughs. But this one outdoes any of my near-death experiences in my car.

Today my new co-worker Erica and I decided to go out to lunch. I, as usual, was cashless and needed to hit an ATM first but Erica said she'd cover me until tomorrow. So we go to this Italian cafe at her suggestion. We get a seat outside in the garden, out from under the protective covering of the rooftop. The noontime sunlight is filtering through the treetops, and the sky is bright blue. It's a beautiful day for outdoor dining.

We order some antipasto and a meal. We sip our water. Our food comes out and we get freshly shredded cheese. And then...in the matter of seconds the following occurs:

High over our heads we hear a rustling of the tree leaves. I think to myself "hmm, must be a squirrel or something." I look skyward, as does Erica, and the woman at the table next to us. Our eyes rise just in time to see a giant 5-foot long plank of wood hurling through the leaves, bounce off the roof, ricochet off a wall and land directly on the ground beside our table. While Erica and I sit braced and speechless, a waiter rushes over and stares into the sky. More waiters gather. Erica and I look at each other in disbelief and start laughing. A waiter asks us if we are okay. We say we are and laugh more, both hoping we don't have spinach in our teeth while everyone in the restaurant is looking at us.

A waiter picks up the wood and runs away. A woman behind me suggests we wear hard hats. The manager comes over to make sure we haven't been mamed in the spontaneous wood dropping. We insist we are fine, but eat the rest of our meal with one eye in the sky, not knowing if there will be more.

A few minutes later, the manager comes back. The building next door has construction going on on the roof, some 10 or 12 stories. The wood fell from there. The man responsible saw it fall and came down to see if there was damage. He bought our lunch, and I didn't need to borrow Erica's money after all.