7 Million People Without Transportation

New York City’s transit system, known as MTA, is threatening to strike at midnight tonight. If this happens, over seven million people will be without transportation tomorrow. This means people can't go to work. It also means that my sister-in-law Jacqui, on her way to LaGuardia at 8:00AM tomorrow, might have a hard time getting from LGA to midtown. It certainly isn't walking distance.

This just pisses me off – and 6,999,999 other people. Mayor Bloomberg suggested people use their bicycles to get around. Right. It's sixteen degrees with a 4-degree wind chill and a winter storm on the way. How's that, Mr. Mayor?

I’ve got it easy. I can work from home if I have to. Most people can’t. (Not to mention, I’m on vacation tomorrow.) But who's to say this thing won't last days? And the rest of the city. . . it’s not like we can (a) fit 7 million more cars on the roads, or (b) afford to take a taxi to work. This strike is just not right. One of the porters in my apartment building was telling me that it would cost him 20 bucks to take a cab to work. Plus tip. That’s 45 bucks a day to commute. Can you imagine? He can’t afford it. Hell, I can’t afford that, and I live at the Gershwin!

It’ll be a costly strike for this city. Every single police officer will be called to duty, so overtime rates will soar. HOV rules will go into effect immediately – requiring 4 people per car. Crime will rise in the road-rage category. And think of the timing of this thing – it’s Christmas, for you-know-who's-sake! Imagine the number of displaced holiday travelers this will create. And what will it do to the local businesses who are counting on Christmas sales?

None of us want to think about it.

To add insult to injury, one other thing is heading our way tonight – freezing rain. This creates another obstacle for Jacqui to get here. It’s possible her plane will be delayed or cancelled. Man! We’ve got tickets to see not only the Rockettes, but Spamalot too! We have reservations at Sardi’s with my friend Peggy who's coming up from Florida. She’s got to make it here. She’s just got to.

So my fingers are crossed that the strike is averted.

A funny thing happened earlier this week. My girlfriend (the other Jacqui) came over to visit me (during the one 30-minute free timeslot I had all week). It'd been a while since we'd gotten together. She left our employer's office near Radio City Music Hall and was walking down the street toward my place when a Hummer stopped at an intersection and one of the passenger windows rolled down. Now Jacqui, as I've mentioned before, is a strikingly beautiful woman. So she gets a lot of attention. But this time it was unique. The guy who leaned out the window to hit on her was none other than Mike Tyson! Asking her if she needed a ride. Jacqui took one look at his ugly gap-toothed, tattooed mug and told Mr. Tyson (in no uncertain terms), "Puh-LEEZ, just GO AWAY!!"

You go girl! Hee hee.

So after an exhausting, hectic, stressful, hair-pulling week at work, I’m finally sitting down to do something relaxing - watch mindless TV and monitor the strike news. My back is killing me. My physical therapist and my doctor both told me to cut out the OT at my insane job. I wish the job would let me! I just can't get away from it. Heck, even Martin protested the overtime earlier in my workday. First he tried sitting on my computer. This caused a new email message to be composed to my co-worker Larry that went something like this:

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So I had to remove Martin from the keyboard.

When that ploy didn’t work, he sat himself down between the keyboard and the monitor and sat there for 10 minutes. I had to work around him - and he pretended I wasn't even there.

Ok, ok! I quit already! As my cousin Debbie said, "Martin knows best." Silly kitty.

Happy Holidays everyone!