Simpson's Paradox

A couple weeks ago, I went to look at a potential apartment. The apartments I’ve been viewing were all basically the same, but the neighborhood seems to change pretty dramatically over a few blocks of walking. It was late evening as Harold and I were waiting on the steps of a lovely Brooklyn brownstone (Oh, Harold is not going to live in the apartment, he just came with me.) waiting to meet the landlord, who is meant to be letting us in.

A fellow pedaled by on his bicycle, not really bothering anyone, but clearly the bottle in his hand was not his first that evening. A police officer stopped this drunken cyclist, and while I was on the phone, trying to find the late landlord, a handful of backup officers arrived. They were cuffing the drunk biker, and searching the ground for what he might have dropped, with all kinds of implications there, and radioing for further back up, and shouting over to each other.

By the time the third cop car turned up, blocking the street and beginning a shouting match with a driver unable to pass, Harold looks over at me. “Meg? Let’s… just… go.”

I think that it’s a good idea, and we do, but actually, that’s not why I didn’t take the apartment. It was just too hard to reach the building’s landlord.