The Story of the Transit Strike

This is the story of how I survived the transit strike of 2005. Remember that time when all the New York City transit workers went on strike (struck?) and there were no subways and buses and people all over the city had to walk everywhere? And I had to pretend to be like this:

Because people my age are supposed to be radical and stand up for protesting workers and damn the man and all the business, but I was really like this:

And being like: “Those damn whipper snappers! How am I supposed to get to my bingo night?” And what is a “whipper snapper” exactly? I picture them looking something like this:

Which isn’t all that threatening if you think about it. But old people scare easily. Just look at Harrison Ford’s face!

So at the time of the transit strike, I lived in Brooklyn, and worked in publishing and generally lived a super trendy lifestyle like this:

Except not douchey looking. And not that trendy. And basically just sat on the couch all day watching TV like I currently do while I live with my parents, but back then I did it in Brooklyn.

So I woke up the morning of the strike and turned on the news and found out that the transit strike had really happened, and I was like: “Woo! Sick day!” But then I saw that loads of people were walking across the bridges from Brooklyn to Manhattan to get to work and I felt like a loser, and guilted myself into walking to work. So I bundled up nice and warm because around that time New York City looked like this:

Because apparently it’s not a law that all strikes that cause people to have to walk to work don’t occur in the winter. So I put on my iPod possibly playing Tyra Banks’ “Shake Ya Body” and I started off being all like:

But then it didn’t take long before I as all like:

Except I wasn’t completely adorable. (Can someone make one of those for me?) I was more like:

Because halfway across the bridge I reached that annoying body temperature level where you’re absolutely sweating, but completely bundled up, but you can’t take anything off because its freezing, and your nose looks like:

And by this point my gloves are absolutely disgusting from wiping my nose. Did I ever clean those gloves? I doubt it. Oh well. So I finally get to the other side of the bridge and Red Cross is there handing out little packages of tissues and hot chocolate. And possibly doing this:

And did I mention that this was all happening after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, so people in New Orleans were like:

And someone in the Red Cross was like:

“Oh my god! Some white people in New York need to walk over a bridge! We have to bring them little packages of tissues and hot chocolate!” And then they all flew away in helicopters. And the people in New Orleans were like:

“Say what?”

So after I blew my nose and said “no thank you” to the hot chocolate (because it would have been a logistical nightmare to drink hot chocolate with my unwieldy, dried snotty gloves) I had a renewed sense of vim and vigor. I know what vigor is, but what is vim exactly?

And as I walked through the streets of lower Manhattan, I came across a giant billboard that looked like this:

And it makes me think to myself: “Daaayum! Good thing I have those tissues!” and I patted myself on the back for being so damn clever, because even after an hour of walking in the freezing cold to get to work, I never pass up an opportunity to congratulate myself for being awesome make a joke.