Holiday Harmonium

Yesterday, in spite of recovering from my cold, I climbed four flights of stairs to get to my office. I should have waited for the elevator, but there was an insane amount of people waiting for it, the elevator was taking forever to open up, and I had an attack of conscience based on the realization that I potentially might infect 10 other people with the health equivalent of a mugging and an atom bomb rolled into one.

Taking the stairs is normally nothing worth noting, but in this case it was different. A handsome middle-aged woman was sitting in a chair on the third floor stairwell playing Jingle Bells on an accordion. Another man, with a slouched hat and a beard, sat opposite her, listening and making notes in a book. I did what most people would have done when confronted with an unusual scene involving an accordion: I pretended not to see it and walked silently by. I know that in some cities, this sort of thing would not be too unusual, but for me, it was definitely out of the ordinary.