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Video: How Not to React to a Rat in Your Subway Train
By
John Del Signore
Published Jan 27, 2011
Modified Jan 27, 2011
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By
John Del Signore
Published Jan 27, 2011
Modified Jan 27, 2011
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NYC the Blog has become the undisputed king of the rat videos. The last YouTube video embedded on the website set the standard for rat-inside-the-subway-train porn, showing the world how a real New Yorker reacts when a rat scampers across his face: Smile, shrug it off, and pretend to go back to sleep as if you're not bothered one bit. The latest installment, however, signals a sad day for New Yorkers, because it depicts us as a bunch of shrieking housewives perched on kitchen chairs calling for someone to rescue us from this hideous vermin. EEK?! This is not how it's done in New York:
Nor is it permissible, as one cowardly braggart does in the video, to yell such things as, "Somebody step on that bitch." We are against rats, and for their removal, but there's no honor in an unfair fight. Invite as many rats as there are humans inside a subway car and stomp away (if you dare), but to crush one terrified, cornered rat who's simply commuting back to the nest after a long day's scavenge strikes us as ungentlemanly.
Rats are disease-carrying, horrifying baby-eaters, to be sure, but as New Yorkers it is important that we maintain our facade of detached indifference. There are rats everywhere in this town—there's one crawling up your leg with a knife between its teeth right now. From time to time they ride the subway, take in a moving picture, dine at taco bell, and yes, scamper across your face. When this happens to you—and it will happen—please maintain your blasé attitude. Only provincial types panic. Laugh it off, stroll casually back to your apartment, lock the door, and then cry your eyes out in a hot shower for 30 minutes with a bottle of rum. (We find this is actually a great way to finish most weekdays.)
For a shining example of how to react to rats, here's a classic anecdote from New York Observer writer David Michaelis, who, when he worked at the Paris Review's famous office in an Upper East Side brownstone, "came in one morning to find a rat swimming in the office toilet, which caused hardly any commotion, it turned out, so unflappable was the staff of George Plimpton's literary magazine." Let's not lose our edge, New York.
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John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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