Why it's a good idea to ALWAYS wear underwear

Today, I learned first-hand that this city is full of some crazy people.

Well, I really already knew that, but I came into close contact with one guy today. And it was both terribly sad and ridiculously hilarious at the same time.

After leashing up the dog to take her for a quick evening pee walk, I walked out of my building to see this guy leaning up against a white car right outside my building holding his coat in both hands out in front of him. He was eyeing me weirdly, so I kept an eye on him as Chloe and I quickly walked past him.

On our way back toward our building, a nice, clean-cut guy hurried up to me to ask whether I lived around there. I told him "no" because he was either going to ask me for directions (which I am not good with) or ask me to let him into my building, which I will not do regardless of how clean-cut he looked.

Then he pointed at the weird guy I saw leaning up against the car just moments before. Only now, the guy was lying on his back IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STREET rolling from side to side as if he had a terrible stomachache. The clean-cut guy, whose name I later learned was Peter, asked me if I lived nearby so I could call for help because he said he couldn't just leave the weird guy in the road to be hit by some crazy taxi driver.

So I told Peter that I'd take care of it and ran into my building, dragging Chloe along behind me. I really didn't want to leave Peter alone with the weird guy in case he did something crazy.

When I got to the third floor, I couldn't get our apartment door open for some reason, so I started pounding on the door and yelling to Brent that it was locked. But then I got the door open on my own, pulled the dog inside, rummaged through my purse for my cell phone, and ran out the door again after yelling, "I'll be right back" to Brent, who was in the bathroom.

By the time I got back outside, Peter was literally holding the weird guy up in a bear-hug because the guy was so drunk or high or both that he was practically dead-weight. The guy kept blubbering that he lived just down the block, so Peter and I briefly talked about walking him home before dismissing the idea when we realized that we wouldn't be WALKING him home as much as we'd be CARRYING him home.

After Peter got the guy's jacket and hat back on him, the guy teetered on his own feet for a second before Peter had to jump in and cushion his fall as the toppled over onto the curb. It was at that point that I announced that I was calling for help.

So I dialed 911 and after telling the first operator that I lived in Manhattan, I was transferred to the nearest dispatching center. I thought they'd send a police cruiser, but they said they'd be dispatching an ambulance. Meanwhile, they told us to keep talking to him, but be wary in case he tried to do something crazy.

So we propped him up against a pole and tried to talk to him, which was hard because what he was saying wasn't making much sense. It sounded something like "muhnumphschnump, no offense, no offense." All I made out was "no offense" which made me think he was inadvertently insulting us for some reason. Then he started telling us that he was a bad person, and we kept assuring him that he wasn't until the ambulance arrived about 10 minutes later.

Right at this time, Brent came out the front doors and glared at me while taking deep breaths. I'll explain that later.

Two paramedics got out of the ambulance and the woman warily looked at the guy and told him to stand up. We told her that he couldn't stand up. She ignored us, and Peter had to help the guy to his feet because the paramedics - though they were wearing gloves and it was their JOB - wouldn't touch him.

So Peter half carried and half dragged the guy to the back of the ambulance. On the way, the guy's pant legs got caught underneath his boots, his belt failed, and his pants fell all the way down to his ankles.

And he wasn't wearing any underwear.

Peter noticed the problem and tried to hike the guy's pants up while carrying him and ended up dropping the half-naked guy on his ass right on the street next to the ambulance.

Right about this time, the guy looked up at us and asked the relatively obvious question, "Why are my pants down?" Sigh.

Finally, the paramedics stepped in to help - how nice of them - and hiked up the guy's pants, and put him on a gurney so he could be taken to the hospital around the corner overnight.

After the ambulance left, Peter shook Brent's hand and told him that his fiancee was a very good, helpful person (go me!) and Brent and I headed back upstairs, where he began yelling at me for scaring the crap out of him.

Here's his version of the story (as he told it to me):

He was in his boxers in the bathroom when he heard me pounding on the door and yelling about how it was locked. Then Chloe ran into the bathroom with her leash still attached. So he came out of the bathroom to find me - which is not very hard in our one-bedroom apartment - and saw my purse wide open with my wallet and other things strewn about.

Naturally, he thought I was first robbed, then abducted and was being raped somewhere.

So he said he gingerly opened the door to peer out the hallway. When he didn't see me, he quickly got dressed and took the stairs down in case I was fighting someone dragging me from the building.

Before heading to the basement to see if I was there, he saw the ambulance's flashing lights and spotted me standing right next to it. His feeling of relief was apparently fleeting because he immediately glared at me and told me later I scared him to death. He apparently didn't hear the "I'll be right back" and assumed the worst.

This city will do that to ya!