I was in the City yesterday for a meeting on the East Side of Manhattan.

The meeting ended at 6:15 p.m., and I left the building, hoping to catch a cab.

When I saw the hordes of people walking up Third Avenue and looking bewildered, I guessed that something was up.

While I was standing on a corner waiting to cross the street, an old woman with a wheeled walker rolled up to me and yelled at me, "I think something happened!! This is not a normal crowd! I've lived my whole life in New York, and this looks like something those Al Qaeda folks set up. I swear, what is this world coming to?"

She followed me for the next block, muttering loudly to me the whole time. She was amazingly fast on that walker.

I don't know why strangers always talk to me in the street like that. Do I have a friendly and inviting face? I've always wondered.

Like I said, this woman was fast. She kept up with me for a while. It must have been those tennis balls shoved on the end of each of the walker's legs, that made it a smoother ride. Kind of like these: