A Bonfire of Insanities

Yesterday a tornado touched down in New York City, my old neighborhood in Brooklyn to be precise. Over in the Dirty Shitty (as Jersey City is known), I was awakened by a huge crash of thunder right over my house and an almost simultaneous flash of lighting that went on for a lot longer than it takes for one to stay in the comfort zone.

I moved to the edge of my bed and peeked behind the curtain to see a sky that looked like something from the Wizard of Oz, all that was missing was the actual tornado and Judy Garland flying by on a bike while drinking a bottle of hooch.

I do believe that at this point I may have considered having an involuntary bowel movement but decided that would probably wake the baby so I just sat in silence watching this amazing lightning display going on right above my head. The baby slept right through the whole thing (thankfully).

It was time to get up, well it wasn't actually, it was 5.52am, I get up at 5.55am, if it wasn't for the thunder I would have had an extra 3 minutes in bed. AN EXTRA 3 MINUTES!!!! DAMN YOU MOTHER NATURE!!

I crawled out of bed and went downstairs while waterfalls streamed down every window and the air-conditioners sounded like they were under attack from the kid gangsters in Bugsy Malone armed with b.b machine guns, the rain was that heavy! I later read that we got 3 inches of rain in an hour and combined with the 5am high tide it meant that a lot of people were swimming to work.

I had an hour to wake up and get ready for my commute, I considered putting on my day-glo
speedo swimming trunks and my dark green goggles but decided to actually wear my sandals as my feet were gonna get soaked anyway.

I waited for an eternity for a bus and when I got on it was packed with people standing. There was however, one seat left and I grabbed it.

Two seconds later the guy sitting next to me punches me on the knee. Ouch!

I look at him: "What?"

"Nothing" he says.

"Okaaayyyyyy", I'm too knackered to pursue the issue so I go back to trying to wring the water out of my fat folds when he suddenly shoots up out of his seat for a second. He then relaxes and sits back down.

"Oh great" I'm thinking to myself, "I guess I now know why there was an empty seat on a busy bus, everyone else is better at spot the looney than I am".

There are too many people on the bus and I can't get out of the seat now, meanwhile he is twitching away. I was starting to wonder if maybe he was struck by lightning earlier when he starts going: "f-f-f-f-f-f-f-fuck".

He has Tourettes. Great. DAMN YOU AGAIN MOTHER NATURE! DAMN YOU ALL TO HAIL!!

This is the second time this has happened to me in the last two years, I may even have blogged about the last time before, but the last guy wasn't sitting next to me so it wasn't so bad (he was sitting in front of me saying "Mother-f-f-f-f-fucker" over and over again and shooting big gobs of spit on the back of the neck of the poor girl in front of him).

I put my IPOD on and crank up the punk rock. I manage to drown him out but he continues to kick me like an Italian defender. Thankfully it is a short bus ride... to the train station.

The station is chaos. Most of the Manhattan bound trains are suspended due to flooding and I eventually manage to squeeze onto a train that may well be bound for Aushwitz for all I know. The air conditioning is not working and I am jammed in like a toothpick that is still in the little jar with 5oo other little toothpicks.

The train crawls along at 2mph and we are all sweaty and cranky but I am happy just to get anywhere. A lot of people are staying home.

Eventually I get to the World Trade Center to scenes of people fighting over taxis as all the subways are flooded and closed. It is insane. I watch thankful that my work is only a short walk away.

You can see some pictures here. It was a mad morning............