0 chill
Recently my parents were taking a long-haul train trip that involved taking a train down to one of NYC’s train stations, and then transferring to the other one. I don’t remember which one was which, but they had to get from Grand Central to Penn Station, or vice versa. Now, you’d think those would be connected by something, if only the subway, but you’d be wrong-- it’s two subways, with a long transfer, and there’s no shuttle or anything.
So I was like, “take a cab guys.” it’s not hard. I’m super awful at shit like that but I know that NYC has cabs and there’s a cab stand and they don’t care, it’s like $5, it’s a short ride.
“We could walk,” Mom said, mentally tallying their luggage.
“No,” I said, “just take a cab.”
“The subway can’t be that complicated,” Dad said. He grew up in NYC but he moved away in like 1969, so his knowledge is uh. Incomplete.Â
“Take a cab,” I said. “I mean it. Seriously. Just. Take a cab.”
Middle-Little piped up, “Or you could get an Uber!”
“THEY’RE FILTHY FUCKING SCABS DON’T DO IT.” I didn’t so much say that as my skull split open and that kind of emanated from it in an unbroken stream. There was reverb. It was uncanny.Â
It took me a moment, and everyone was kind of sitting there in stunned silence, as I kind of reassembled my skull and pasted on a slightly-flustered polite smile. “I mean,” I said, a little breathless. “They’re scabs. Uber are union-busting scabs, specifically in New York, and so, you should just hail a cab, I have done it myself for that selfsame journey and I promise it is not complicated.”
Mom and Dad hailed a cab just fine.
