The suburbs were out to get me

Many people believe that cities are dangerous places, and they're not entirely wrong. There are higher crime rates, speeding cabs, shaky scaffolding, fizzling car bombs, uncovered manholes, bedbugs, and pianos being delivered via deteriorating rope.

But does that make a place unsafe?

I'll tell you about unsafe.

This summer, the suburbs almost killed me.

And not in the figurative sense. I mean the suburbs were actually, physically, beating me up.

That may sound ridiculous, but let me give you the facts: A perfectly healthy twentysomething went home to the burbs and ended up in the emergency room four times.

It began when I came home one long weekend in July. I was walking around in my backyard when CRACK!, I stepped in a hole and heard my big toe break. Who had booby-trapped the yard?

Ruby, the dog.

Unlike municipal construction workers, dogs don't string CAUTION tape around their worksites.

My foot ballooned, and I agreed with my mother that I ought to get it checked out. We went to the emergency room, and I explained how I broke my toe, a story with the panache of slipping on a banana peel.

I had yet to recognize that the cunning of the suburbs lies in its ho-hum facade.

This same weekend, a storm knocked out our power at home. With the temperatures in the 90s every day, I thought the worst of the outage was the lack of fans and air-conditioning. But it was evening, and there were no lights in the house, and I was looking for my cell phone. I spotted it on the floor, bent to get it, and WHAM! I hit my head on a shelf and knocked myself out.

The ER nurse looked at my chart and frowned. "Your record says . . . you were here yesterday? Is this a related incident?"

I felt like an idiot. No, ma'am, yesterday I stepped in a hole, today I hit my head on a shelf. Oh, the banality!

At least when you're mugged in the city you have a story to tell.

I was treated for a concussion and in a few days I hobbled back to Manhattan, nursing a headache and a limp.

But the blow to the head must have damaged my memory, because by August, I returned home for a week of staycation. One day, my mom and I joined some friends for a horseback ride. We were cantering out in the open field with the sun on our backs and the wind in our hair. My horse must've felt the thrill, too, because he bucked, and the next thing I knew, I was feeling the wind everywhere else. Sailing through the air, I had only enough time to think, "Oh, dear," before I ate dirt.

Emergency room visit number three.

Thankfully, my second brain scan of the summer showed no damage to my noggin - thanks to my helmet - and a slide show of X-rays to my back and pelvis showed no breaks. My pain was severe soft-tissue damage that would heal with time.

The suburbs know better than to leave a mark.

So they loaded me up with prescriptions for Vicodin and a muscle relaxant, and sent me home.

Exactly one week later, I woke up with terrible stomach pain. I went to my regular doctor, but he couldn't pinpoint the cause. He said he would need a CAT scan of my body to rule out ailments like appendicitis. Of course, there's only one place that provides that kind of equipment without an appointment.

At the emergency room check-in desk, the woman looked up and smiled. "Francesca, right?"

You wanna go, where everybody knows your name. . . .

Four hours later, my new friends at the ER concluded that I was experiencing a bad reaction to my pain medication.

Popping painkillers - the quintessential suburban sin. How did I, a single 24-year-old who lives in the city, become a desperate housewife? And where is my sexy, shirtless gardener?

But the real question is, how did the cocoon of my childhood become a house of pain? Are the suburbs kicking me out? I don't know what's going on.

All I know is that I need to get back to the city.

Where it's safe.