Nothing Like A Knife Fight Taking Place On A Crowded Subway Right In Front Of A Baby To Get The Juices Flowing During Your Commute
I still remember the moment I knew I was going to move out of New York City before having any kids. About ten years ago, my wife and I were walking home from dinner on Valentine's Day when a group of young children were leaving a church after what seemed to be some sort of play they had put on for their parents. As the families slowly made their way out into the street, a homeless man walked by and screamed "YOU'RE ALL GONNA DIIIIIIIIIIIE MOTHAFUCKAZZZZ!!!" at the top of his lungs before scampering off to wherever homeless people go. Without breaking stride I looked at my wife and said "Yeah, we aren't raising any kids in this hellhole for even one day" before logging onto Zillow the millisecond we got home (The internet was slow as shit on phones back then).
However, if I had somehow been born a decade later and never witnessed that moment, I think watching two people casually have a knife duel on a crowded subway with a baby inches away from them would have done the trick. Actually, the first time I had to shlep a stroller up or down the stairs would have gotten my fat ass to the suburbs. If I had somehow made it past that point, I think this video would have been the final step.
Not just because I would never want to subject myself or my baby to dangerous people that leave their houses with blades just in case a knife fight breaks out in a jam packed train. But because of everyone else's reaction to the fight. You can have a street performer shooting fireworks out of their ass while claiming to be Jesus reincarnated and not one New Yorker will look up from whatever music is blasting in their earbuds. But these two crazy mamma jammas actually got an entire subway train to react in horror to blood potentially being spilled. Well almost everyone. Because the woman with the aforementioned baby had the look we all usually have as someone acts a fool on the subway.
If I had made it to the point of life where I had no reaction to two people dueling like they were in the Beat It music video with my kid directly in innocent bystander stabbing distance, I would know it's officially time to fly like a bird far far from wherever I was.
Credit to the baby for getting the "This City Has Completely Desensitized My Soul" look down while still living the stroller life.
That's the only way you will make it in this crazy city. And as the song says, if you can make it here, you can make in anywhere (Which is where you should definitely try to make it because here fucking STINKS).