Monday, May 29, 2006

Strike!

Oh yeah, I woke up to some lovely news this morning. Surprise TTC strike. The TTC, the Toronto Transit Comission, for those of you who don't know, is our public transit service, buses, streetcars and subway. If you are in Toronto and you aren't walking, biking or driving somewhere, then you are probably a TTC rider. On a normal day, using the TTC, it takes me about 20 to 25 minutes to get from my house to work, today it took me about and hour and a half, and to top it off, it was 30 degrees celsius today, it felt like 39 with the humidex, and there was a smog alert which won't be aleviated at all by all the cars sitting in gridlock traffic for hours and hours today.
Now, they had a job action last week as well, which was much more fun, they announced that they weren't going to force anyone to pay their fare, if you wanted to get on a bus and walk right by the fare box, that would be the end of it, you could still ride. Well, that day came and went, I paid my fare without being asked so did almost everybody else, we're very law abiding here you know. Then we all patted ourselves on the back and talked about how when that big power outage happened, instead of rioting and looting, we all went out in our yards and drank beer and barbequed our thawing meat and offered it to the neighbours or anyone else who happened to be around. Aren't we so nice.
Well, after walking to work this morning, I can't figure out what the local media's self congratulatory angle is going to be today. I saw very few cars with more than one person in them, I didn't see a single car with more than two people in it - that includes cabs. I did see one lady hitch-hiking, ugh. I walked past at least one accident. Worst of all were the assholes who parked their cars illegally and blocked whole lanes. Why would you do that on any day, never mind a day like today? That's how you get your car keyed.
I suppose the drivers did seem relatively calm and patient with the whole situation, but I'd also have been calmer sitting in my car with the air-conditioning jacked up and some nice music playing, than I was sweating my ass off in the scorching heat stopping at every convenience store for more water and to slather on another layer of sunscreen. I kept imagining how much better the walk would have been if it had been like a marathon and there had been people standing at folding tables every so often with paper cups of water that I could have taken a sip of and then splashed the rest over my face and hair.
Actually, when I woke up this morning and heard about this whole thing, it felt a whole lot like a snow day, but in the summer, how often does that happen! When I was a kid, other parents would let their kids stay home when there was a snow day, if the school bus wasn't running, then they would just not bother, but at my house, as long as the school wasn't locked, we still had to go. And, if the weather was too bad to take the car out and drive us, or the street hadn't been plowed yet, we would have to walk. So this really was a lot like a snow day.
Anyway, I made it, to work, when I got in I went straight to the bathroom - after all that water drinking, it was getting kind of ugent. Then when I tried to pull my jeans back up, it was just like trying to put a wet bathing suit back on after going to the bathroom at the swimming pool, not easy, and not comfortable.
It was actually, kind of pointless for me to come in today, I'm not planning on doing anything productive, it's my last day, so what the hey.
Happy TTC strike, bitches!

5 comments:

Jennifer said...

oh, and to top off the loveliness of this day, i had some kind of allergic reaction or something - i suspect it was the sunscreen - and by the time i got to work, my left hand was so swollen i could barely bend my fingers any more and i had pins and needles. it's better now though.
how did everyone else's trip to work go today?

Miss Ash said...

Same old for me. Sped along on the highway at about 125km or so 45 minutes later i arrived. I listened to the Dean Blundell morning show though, he too was bitching about the strike. Todd thought it was a great idea, cause all the lovely ladies were walking by in little clothing as it was so hot out. He hoped that the TTC would strike only on the hottest days LOL

Princess Pessimism said...

Oh that reminds me. After I left you on friday, I took the subway to bloor station, and as soon as I got off the train, they announced that they were going to shut down the trains as someone had pulled an alarm on one of the subways at i think lakeshore station *is that one??*...anyway, there was some sort of emergency, did you hear anything about it? But I was glad that I was off by then.

Anonymous said...

it took me 40 minutes to walk to work. walked down parliament to queens quay then across to bay, it actually wasn't too painful. the walk home was way worse. then i felt like crap all night (still do).

not much of a comment, but thought i'd leave some evidence that i check and read yr blog;)

Trib said...

Lovely day for a walk, what what.