THE SHRUBBERY'S BLOCKING THE VIEW . . .

I was in the city tonight having dinner with some friends. I forgot Shrub was in town. I don't even know why he was in town. Something about the United Nations and some big dinner at the Waldorf or something like that. I ceased paying attention ....

But the point is not him, directly anyway. The point is that I was surrounded by Secret Service agents. SURROUNDED. I stepped off my commuter train in Grand Central Station: Secret Service agents. I walked upstairs and out onto the street: Secret Service agents. I strolled up and over and through a whole series of blocked-off streets: Secret Service agents.

And I stopped strolling at one point, stood in the middle of the sidewalk, just a couple of blocks north of Grand Central Terminal, and stared at a group of Secret Service agents to marvel at this fact: they are not secret, and they make no effort to be so. There they all are, all men as far as I can account, wearing dark wool suits on a sweltering and humid 90-degree afternoon, some wearing very suspicious and not-at-all-friendly sunglasses, and all with very conspicuous earpieces sticking out from underneath their suit jackets. What is secret about them? NOTHING.

So imagine my utter shock and disbelief and yes, THRILL, when this HOMELESS LADY squatting on the sidewalk next to me, taps me on the shoulder, moves aside the collar of her grimy shirt to reveal a United States Secret Service badge, and grimly states, "you have to keep moving, miss." I WAS IN GOVERNMENT OPERATIVE WANNBE HEAVEN! Had it not occurred to me that (1) she sounded totally serious and not at all congenial and (2) she was probably packing serious, serious heat, I would have asked her to show me her badge again, and been all, "NOOOOOO. You are NOT. For REAL?! That's so AWESOME. NOOOOOO."

Instead, I shook my head to clear the fog and awesomeness from my eyes, and kept moving. Huh, I guess they are secret after all.

***

BUT THEN . . .

But then, I got scared. There's something very eerie about walking around the streets of a city, even a city as vast as New York, and realizing that everyone in your immediate vicinity is armed up the wazoo. I strolled past some demonstrators, and thought, "oh my God, if any of these people start to wig out, someone could start shooting, and what the HELL am I standing here for?" I walked down a side street and got a creepy-crawly feeling on my spine, so I turned around and noted that there was a literal HERD of Secret Service (of the not-so-secret variety) agents following me -- about eight or nine of them, walking in a pack, each of them meeting my eyes when I turned to glance at them. There's just nothing like the feeling of being followed -- even incidentally -- down the street by eight or nine men and women carrying guns. (FYI: I turned left at the corner; they went right. I like to think I "lost them.")

Everywhere I went, until I finally left the relevant neighborhood, there they were: the armed and dangerous. It didn't matter to me that they were "the good guys." All I could think was, "to them, I am a potential bad guy, and if they have to, they'll take me out." What an unnerving thought.

Sort of made me think ... maybe the life of a non-secret secret agent is not for me. Or at least, no one around me is allowed to pack heat unless I, too, have a piece on me.