New Yorkers Have No Idea How To Prepare For A Hurricane

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In times of natural disasters, it really becomes clear to me how defective most New Yorkers are. And I mean that in the best way possible. Here we are, most of us transplants who’ve moved to New York to be professional weirdos and live life on our own terms. To us, New York is some kind of Xanax, I mean Xanadu, where we can work hard and play hard without answering to anyone. There’s a kind of eternal youthfulness here where senior citizens still attend midnight screenings and grab a drink at the bar. In many ways, this city makes it so you never need to grow up.

When something like Hurricane Sandy comes along, most New Yorkers are just like, “What?” There’s an air of invincibility that comes along with living here. You think you pay too much rent and are surrounded by too much culture to really feel the wrath of Mother Nature! After the massive blue balling of Hurricane Irene last year, our hubris has become even more inflated!

What’s perhaps most interesting about New Yorkers waiting for a natural disaster to hit is that we have to be bored. Really bored until something terrible happens. “Being bored” is most New Yorkers’ version of hell. We live here specifically so we won’t ever be bored! This is not an island of homebodies, people! Telling us to sit in our apartments and watch TV may seem like heaven to most but to others it’s a cruel punishment.

I’ve been reading my newsfeed on Twitter and Facebook and most of them seem to echo the same sentiment: “I’m prepared for Sandy!” with an Instagram picture attached of twelve bottles of wine. Seriously, the two things New Yorkers love to do the most is complain and drink, and a natural disaster gives them plenty of opportunity to do both.

Honestly, if I didn’t live here and I saw all of those tweets from New Yorkers “celebrating” a damn hurricane and generally being “LOL” about the destruction, I’d be like, “You guys are such obnoxious idiots!” And you’d be right. We are obnoxious, especially when we’ve been inside all day. But you know what? I’m proud to live in a city full of unconventional freaks who value having enough wine over having batteries for flashlights. There’s a sense of comaraderie in living here that warms my heart, even when there’s a torrential downpour outside and a high possibility for snow. New Yorkers know how to enjoy life to the fullest, even when they’re facing death. 

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