Is THIS the price I pay for living in the greatest city in the world?

One of the great things about having Thanksgiving at my parents’ place in Manhattan is that we can walk over to the Thanksgiving Day Parade. This year’s was great, largely because we scored places on the high wall in Central Park and 65^th Street, so I didn’t have to bear the crushing weight of my children on my shoulders for an hour. Did you catch these floats on TV?

What was even more remarkable than the floats were the lengths people went to in order to have the best vantage point for seeing them. There were several people with stepladders and one guy who was carrying a full-sized ladder walking with some friends who were carrying large planks, to make a platform. God, I love New Yorkers. We are so crazily undeterred in our pursuit of the very best way to do everything.

Here’s what’s NOT so great about New York. Now, readers, I should warn you that what I am about to tell you is the single most revolting, most nauseating, most atrocious thing I have yet to say on this blog.

As we were rushing through Central Park to get to the parade, hustling down 65^th Street which had been closed to traffic, I stepped on something.

Something so squishy that I lost my balance and nearly fell to the floor.

Do you know what it was readers?

CAN YOU POSSIBLE IMAGINE?

It wasn’t a condom.

It wasn’t a rotten banana.

It was a dead rat.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Just remembering it makes me want to hurl.

The good news is that I didn’t actually SEE the thing because as I was turning around to find out, hey, what was that sloshy thing I slipped on? A melted ice cream, maybe? David barked, “Don’t look!!”

The kids were totally nonplussed, of course, I, on the other hand, had to take off my outerwear and put my head between my knees.

Well, you know what they say: you take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have -- the facts of New York life.