Rats

From a recent Wall Street Journal article, we learned that Manhattan’s Upper East Side has lately suffered an onslaught of rats; which is not to say that it didn’t have rats before, but only that there are considerably more than is customary for the area, due, many think, to a big subway construction project beneath Second Avenue.  It looks like the street’s moving, the Journal quoted one guy as saying about the multitudes of rats.  Hence, the newsworthiness, in this instance, of rats in New York.

This development reaffirms my conviction that the characterization of New York as a good place to visit but not to live is more than just a throwaway line, but is, in fact, an enduring truth, which find-their-destiny wannabes contemplating moving east from flyover territory ignore at their peril.   New York is a good place to live only if you’re a fan of an impossibly expensive and inhospitable lifestyle that features, among a whole host of inconveniences and annoyances, tiny living quarters with Murphy beds that you pay gazillions to nurse your claustrophobia in, considerable difficulty in getting from place to place due to an unavoidable reliance on the good will of taxi drivers and the schedules of trains (as opposed to just hopping in one’s car), and the rendering of what should be perfectly simple undertakings like buying groceries complicated and daunting.  Also crime, grime, and chesty people with attitudes.

          Unfortunately, New Yorkers are unwilling to suffer these iniquities in silence, instead insisting on telling the rest of us about them ad nauseam, and, in fact, spinning them so as to make them seem advantageous and even enjoyable; as in, these things are fun and interesting and exciting to endure, and we are, above all else, resilient. Well, I say anyone who includes in their description of why they like a city the words “endure” and “resilient” maybe ought to rethink the entire proposition. (“Vibrant” is another word they use a lot – a travel writers’ coinage whose meaning is vague but seems to have something to do with the presence of large numbers of people.  It potentially takes on a somewhat creepier connotation in view of the moving-streets discussion above.)

          One’s immediate instinct is to deliver a stinging riposte like “Oh, yeah? Well, our baseball is every bit as good as your baseball, maybe better, plus we have the St. Louis Symphony, and, well, other good stuff.” But that will only encourage them. They will start throwing Broadway, the Met, and MOMA in our face.  Of course, “they” includes the vast numbers of New Yorkers who have never had any contact, and never will, with any of these institutions, or any of the myriad others they draw like a gun when they feel the need to reassure themselves of their cultural superiority.  (We, on the other hand, should probably cut out including  Ted Drewes on our lists of top ten St. Louis attractions, as an ice cream stand in that position doesn’t exactly paint you as a world class city.)

          Anyway, at least we don’t have rats.  Okay, we have some rats.  I see a new slogan in our future: “St. Louis – the city that has some rats, sure, but not in sufficient numbers to make our streets look like vibrant with them!” 

Something along those lines.