When in Rome...

They say do as the Romans do. This is also good advice when you're in a bustling city like New York. There I was, all by my iddie biddie self on the corner of 6th Ave & W 26th, on a really cold Friday afternoon. I had just come out of a meeting with my agent, the petite powerhouse Jodi Reamer of Writers House fame, and I needed a cab to get back to my hotel. My friend and I (who was attending the SCBWI conference with me) had walked down 6th from 54th. The natives were shocked! Now on my own, I decided I was too tired to walk back. I didn't want to take the subway in case I ended up in Brooklyn. So, cabbing was the only option.

I stood at the corner for a few minutes, watching a steady stream of yellow cabs whiz by me. People were actually running out into the street, hurling themselves at cabs in an effort to claim them! I was worried. What if they realized I was a Canadian? They might not stop at all...

I thought back to movies and television shows I had seen, like "Sex and the City," trying to retrieve an image of Carrie flagging down a cab. Of course, her wardrobe was much better than mine, which probably helped. But I wasn't going to let that stop me. I needed a cab, and I was going to get one, even if I had to take precedence over a native New Yorker.

I staked out a good spot on the sidewalk, where the cabs could see me. I turned toward the oncoming yellow melee. Then, like I'd been doing it all my life, I took an assertive step forward onto the street, while simultaneously waving my arm straight up in the air. "TAXI!" I yelled.

No one was more surprised than me when a cab zipped right up in front of where I was standing, as if this was my personal chauffeur and he was used to this kind of thing from me. I jumped into the back of the cab. I'd done it! And it hadn't even been that hard.

I was proud of myself... I was practically a full-blooded New Yorker, now! As I whizzed through the city in my yellow limo I knew why they called it the Big Apple. And I had just taken a big, crunchy bite.