Well, that was a bust. All week long, all I heard on the news, all everyone was talking about was this massive hurricane that was going to lay waste to New York City. And at the end of the day, to quote the great and mighty Yogurt, Irene was bupkis.
I was actually talked into going "hurricane shopping" yesterday. My roommate and I walked around to three different drug stores and two grocery stores, looking for flashlights, candles, bottled water and non-perishable food stuffs. Most items were sold out. The lines at the stores were ungodly, filled with other gullible Manhattan yokels who were duped into thinking they wouldn't otherwise survive the impending doom that was going to turn their urban existences upside-down.
Back in our apartment, we hunkered down, preparing for doomsday. Around midnight last night, the rain really started coming down and the wind picked up. But according to the weather reports, the brunt of the storm wasn't going to come for another few hours, with today being nothing short of armageddon. I was so excited for my first hurricane, I couldn't even sleep, so I took a Xanax and finally drifted off around 2AM.
I awoke at 11AM, sprung out of bed like it was Christmas morning (assuming I was a person who didn't hate Christmas, but celebrated it), and ran to the window. What did I see? People strolling down the streets. Leaves rustling in a mild breeze. In short, no sign that anything had happened at all.
My roommate told me I had missed it, that at around 9AM it was pretty windy, but that Irene had moved on. "What?!" I said? "I slept through a hurricane?" Let me tell you something. If you can sleep through a hurricane, it's not really a hurricane. It's just a stupid storm, and by the looks of the perfectly clean streets below, a mild one at best. It's like the third strongest storm I've witnessed this summer. No fallen trees, no patio furniture smashed through anybody's window, not even a goddamn clogged drain in the street gutters.
An earthquake and a hurricane in the same week, and I miss them both. I'll tell you what, for all the bravado, machismo, and self-felating pride New Yorkers have in their toughness and heroism, they really are a bunch of pussies when it comes to natural disasters.
I was actually talked into going "hurricane shopping" yesterday. My roommate and I walked around to three different drug stores and two grocery stores, looking for flashlights, candles, bottled water and non-perishable food stuffs. Most items were sold out. The lines at the stores were ungodly, filled with other gullible Manhattan yokels who were duped into thinking they wouldn't otherwise survive the impending doom that was going to turn their urban existences upside-down.
Back in our apartment, we hunkered down, preparing for doomsday. Around midnight last night, the rain really started coming down and the wind picked up. But according to the weather reports, the brunt of the storm wasn't going to come for another few hours, with today being nothing short of armageddon. I was so excited for my first hurricane, I couldn't even sleep, so I took a Xanax and finally drifted off around 2AM.
I awoke at 11AM, sprung out of bed like it was Christmas morning (assuming I was a person who didn't hate Christmas, but celebrated it), and ran to the window. What did I see? People strolling down the streets. Leaves rustling in a mild breeze. In short, no sign that anything had happened at all.
My roommate told me I had missed it, that at around 9AM it was pretty windy, but that Irene had moved on. "What?!" I said? "I slept through a hurricane?" Let me tell you something. If you can sleep through a hurricane, it's not really a hurricane. It's just a stupid storm, and by the looks of the perfectly clean streets below, a mild one at best. It's like the third strongest storm I've witnessed this summer. No fallen trees, no patio furniture smashed through anybody's window, not even a goddamn clogged drain in the street gutters.
An earthquake and a hurricane in the same week, and I miss them both. I'll tell you what, for all the bravado, machismo, and self-felating pride New Yorkers have in their toughness and heroism, they really are a bunch of pussies when it comes to natural disasters.
No comments:
Post a Comment