This is my Dual Yellow SAC/SATS Day in the City Adventure

Here I am outside the famous St. Patrick's Cathedral.  The cute foreign woman that took this picture didn't seem to even notice me casts.
 
  I found a mirror and decided a self portrait might be in order.

This time without the flash

 

Back at St. Patrick's Cathedral.  Again, no apparent curiosity on the part of the picture taker

Inside St. Patrick's.  Same person took this picture and handed back the camera...not a peep about the bright yellow casts. 

The tour guide in Radio City Music Hall was giving her opening speech.  Half way through her monologue, her eyes turned in my direction and I knew it was coming.  Her eyeballs popped OUT OF HER SOCKETS when she saw my casts and she boldly said, "What the heck happened to you?"  Before I could answer, she turned to the crowd and said, "well, isn't everybody dying to know?  Come on now, tell the truth, how many of you saw this guy's arms and wondered what happened?"  Just about every person in the crowd put up a hand.  They all looked at me (about 20 people) and waited for my answer.  I said, "this happened while bicycle riding."  I paused for effect, then went on, "well, actually, it was more like bicycle 'falling' as opposed to riding."  Then, since I had the entire crowd's attention, I figured I would lay it on even thicker and heavier, I continued, "I just got these casts today, you should have seen me for the past month...The casts came up to here..." I indicated the armpits of each arm, "and they were bent ninety degrees at the elbows."  Heh heh, everybody in the crowd oohed and awed.  It was very cool.  A public caster's dream.  All the attention you crave in one glorious moment.

Inside one of the elevators in the Marriot Marquee Hotel.  These elevators make a 42 story climb at 800 feet per minute.  They're glass elevators and you can see down into the lobby of the hotel the entire ride.  The passenger that took this picture didn't speak English very well.  He asked in his thick Spanish accent "Accident?"  I just nodded and said, "yes."  I wasn't into more of a conversation at that time.

At the Newport Center Mall in Jersey City, NJ, I wandered around the mall for a while not attracting much attention.  At length, I spotted one of those virtual reality rides and headed toward it.  This attractive 20-ish year old girl saw me coming and as soon as I was in ear shot shouted, "hey, can I sign your cast?"  

I couldn't believe it, it was the boldest anybody had ever been to me.  And she was a total stranger to boot.  I made a snap decision to return to the story of two days earlier.  I smiled and said, "that would be huge help.  Thanks for asking."  

She looked at me quizzically and asked, "how come?" (she had a slight Hispanic accent, I think she was Puerto Rican)  

I said, "well, I've got to wear these casts until I collect fifty signatures on each cast.  The signatures have to be from strangers and I'm not allowed to ask for them."  By this time, I had the attention of the entire crowd.  You could see on their faces that they were trying to process what I had said.  My statement clearly implied that something was not fitting in to the normal order of things and everyone was having trouble squeezing it in.  

It was the operator of the ride that spoke next, he said, "you mean you don't have any broken bones?"  "Nope," I said, "I lost a bet with my wife."

The Hispanic girl then jumped back in as the leader of this conversation.  "You mean a doctor didn't put you in these casts?"

"Nope."

"Then how did you get them on?"

"My wife is an ER nurse."

She giggled.  Everybody else just stared and listened intently.  People assume my wife put the casts on because of my comment.  It's funny how I still avoid one aspect of lying while deeply entrenched in another.  If any of you people out there is a psychologist, perhaps you could psychoanalyze that one for me.

"What did you bet?" Somebody Asked.

I explained the terms of the bet...that I would wear these casts until collecting fifty signatures per cast or two weeks, whichever came first.  I don't remember how it came up, but I told them my wife and I got the idea from a story we read on the Internet called "THE BET"  Nobody asked where to find the story and I didn't offer. 

The girl that originally boldly asked to sign my cast started making everybody that was gathered there sign my casts.  It was all the attention I been craving and made it easier to remove the casts only 30 minutes later.  I was still melancholy to see them go, but at least I had this fun time with them before taking them off.

I took a ride on the virtual reality machine and then headed home.

Here are a couple of close ups of the casts.  These pictures were taken while I was at the Marriott Marquee, so most of the signatures aren't on them yet.

Sorry about the brightness.  I didn't realize until later that they came out like that.

"Get a load of the tourist with two broken wrists"

In the great hall of Radio City Music Hall

This is Daniella

I got a Radio City Music Hall Rockette to sign my cast!

 Inside the apartment of Mr. Roxy (in Radio City Music Hall)

TThe Cow

 The Port Authority Bus Terminal

The Newport Center Mall in Jersey City

Rockefeller Center

Outside the NBC building in Rockefeller center.  In front of the big Doggy Bush

My arms are as stiff as the statue

There's only one other significant thing that happened on this day that warrants mentioning...I RAN INTO SOMEBODY I KNOW AND HAD TO EXPLAIN MY PREDICAMENT.

Man, it was crazy.  I went 45 minutes out of my way to stop at a computer store.  I purposely avoided the two stores I normally go to because I've bumped into people I know in those stores before.  I figured going way out of my way would protect me.  I march into this Comp USA, ask a salesperson a question, turn around to look in for the Palm Pilot I needed to buy and heard my name called out.  

"No way," I thought.  I turned toward the person calling my name, expecting to see that they were actually calling somebody else.  They weren't.  Here comes this guy who works for a client of mine.  The client is a school and this guy is one of the teachers.  He comes running up with his hand held out to shake my hand.  My casted arms were hidden behind me, but I was stuck.  What could I do?  I brought my right arm around and shook his hand as best I could.

Naturally, he asked what happened.  I mumbled something about my tendonitis acting up again and he accepted it and went on with the conversation.

As soon as he let me go, I ran out of that store liked a spooked squirrel and didn't look back.  I ran to another store, bought the Palm Pilot and headed for home, stopping only to remove my casts.  I reasoned that this guy seeing me wasn't the worst thing in the world.  It would take him gossiping to a certain series of people for the information to make it back to my wife or somebody else in my family. 

That hasn't happened yet, but I did run into this guy at the school where he works and he asked me how my arms were doing and told my contact at the school about the casts.  She has seen me casted many times before though and knows I cast myself, so she wasn't surprised.  I think the story will end there.  At least, I hope it will.  I guess I'll have to be even MORE careful in the future.