So, it's all happening. The entire NYC system of mass transit has come to a grinding halt, leaving already harried and irritable New Yorkers to walk to work in Arctic weather. If someone doesn't get beaten to death in the streets over a cab before this whole thing is done, I'll be very surprised.

A few observations from my bipedal commute:

*Like most things, walking to work with all of Manhattan is cute while it's novel. There was a sort of festival atmosphere this morning, with strangers giggling at one another over the sheer goofiness of seeing so many people walking down the street. I thoroughly enjoyed watching a douchebag in a suit, rollerblading through Midtown, briefcase in hand. But, if the strike goes on more than a few days, I'm betting that the novelty will wear off and there'll be less giggling, less goofiness, and someone (ok ME) is going to drop kick that douchebag rollerblading in a suit right out into the path of an overpriced cab.

*The strangest thing I saw this morning was a crazy homeless woman who was screaming, "STOP WALKING. ALL Y'ALL STOP WALKING RIGHT FUCKING NOW" while beating herself in the head. Not a single person batted an eye. God bless New York City. In her defense though, if I screamed, "STOP WALKING" at, say, 10,000 people and no one looked at me let alone stopped, that'd probably make me a crazy bitch too.

*Anyone who reads regularly knows that my politics swing decidedly left of center. And while I support workers' rights and unions in general, I think striking now, during the holiday season, is bad for commerce, bad for middle class working people, and bad for the city in general.

Every once in a while something happens in the world that causes me to make an imperceptible shift to the right. For instance, when I lose too much money in taxes to afford to donate to charities I'd like to support or, say, that time the Democrats couldn't get their shit together long enough to beat the WORST. PRESIDENT. EVER. in a general election.

I worry that if the strike goes on too long it will become one of those things that edge me a little bit more to the right. I mean, you get enough of these minor and barely noticeable shifts to the right, and you wake up one day living in bunker in Montana with fifteen heavily armed home-schooled children who call you "Maw".

Oh well. Keep your fingers crossed that this strike ends peacefully and soon. Because if I have to have 15 kids, my ass is going to get REALLY fucking fat.

Posted by LMM14_1 :: 9:26 AM :: 3 Comments:

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