It's hard to feel much sympathy for the Transit strikers

So I walked to work today.

Or rather ran. 
To be fair I took a cab to the bridge.  And then ran.
I didn't think I was working today. 

So I started having a couple of beers (or their equivalent) relatively early in the day.  I was productive I simply wasn't sober.  Around three, I took a nap as I am want when I take leave of sobriety earlier in an afternoon.  The phone rang at four and I did something I almost never do.  I didn't answer it.  Let it ring.  Ten minutes later, unable to go back to sleep, I check my phone.  Work is calling.  Suddenly it dawns on me: earlier when I did the math I couldn't figure out my work schedule this week.  I wrote it off as ineobriation but as I checked my message it became clear that this was not a drill.  I was ten minutes late for work already in the middle of a transit strike. 
I don't change.  I do nothing with my hair.  I put on a coat.  I don't put on a hat.  I forget my gloves.  I run to the street to find a cab.

Cab drivers are typically sub-human.  Their humanity, when present, is always a surprise- like a pleasant smelling stall at a Barnes and Noble (and for those of you who may be visiting New York sometime, book stores are simply latrines with pleasant reading material available for purchase).  Right now, during a transit strike there is simply blood in the water for these cabbies.  They can pick you up or not.  They can decide to take you or not.  They can simply yell off duty.  That's what happened to me from the first three cabs.  But I caught a fourth and wended my way towards "The Bridge."

The 59th Street bridge somehow inspired "Feeling Groovy" by Simon and Garfunkel.  Today that song would be particularly ironic.  The line of cars stretched a half mile down the sidestreets from all directions.  Like blood trying to get to Tommy Lasorda's heart.  I jumped out of the cab, threw him eight dollars, and ran up the sidewalk to the pedestrian part of the bridge.  I was now half hour late for work.

I ran as best I could across the bridge and it was at this point I realized I was very cold.  My lungs had that horrible burn that can only come from cells freezing inside of them.  I had no ear covering.  I had no scarves.  The throat leaks heat at a tremendous rate.  I ran about a quarter of a mile on the walk way dodging in and out of this vast human throng that went the entire bridge.  There were every kind of person on the bridge riding every possible type of locomotive conveyance.  Bikes, at hazardous speeds and close quarters, roller bladers, strollers, carts, men carrying their livelihoods, women emptyhanded.  I ran past them all until I couldn't any more.  Stopped to look at the city.  The city I'm leaving in ten days. 

Arrived at work an hour and five minutes late.  Fifty minutes from my home without the train, down eight bucks.  And down a buzz.

Those striking sons of bitches will never know how many buzzes they've killed.  How many mellows they've harshed.  How many vacations scarred.  How many breaks they've screwed. 
I have to walk home tonight.  In eighteen degree weather.  Those sons of bitches make good money.  They say they feel disrespected.  60 thousand dollars a year and they feel disrespected.  Here's a tip, everytime someone gives you a fat paycheck, think: People respect me and so I am continuing to be paid.  Assholes.