Remy the Rat and His Dinner
Can you spot Remy?
I play this game every time I’m waiting for the 6 and N trains.
I win a lot.
One of the problems of the city we live in is the tremendous amount of garbage discarded daily in the streets. From what I’ve observed, subway stations have it the toughest. It may be caused by the high densities of the people arriving and waiting at the stations. It just amazes me how lazy some people are. The trash cans are just a few steps away! Or perhaps the New Yorkers’ shared hatred of the MTA provides them with a reason or justification to pollute its grounds as justice or a means of revenge. The MTA is not really known for its amazing cleaning services among other things…
Whatever it is, all this littering is like manna from heaven to every rat out there. The wastes along with the change in the weather patterns (extreme summer heat) cause the rat population to multiply and thrive. What do we get in return? Various diseases that cause episodes including but not limited to diarrhea, vomiting, and fever.
I liked how you reference Ratatouille. I loved the film and I always thought how awesome it was how Disney changed the image of rats as not simply gross, disease-ridden animals (which unfortunately, they mostly are). I wonder why trash is such a big issue in New York City. I can kind of understand the trash that you can see sparsely littered across the streets, but trash in the MTA always boggles my mind. It must be some sort of safety hazard to have trash laying on the tracks, and to have rodents might cause wire-chewing and potentially dangerous damage.
Perhaps people simply do not care about the place we live, or maybe the consequences have yet to come that will give a good wake up call to everyone. Or even maybe there just isn’t an effective way to clean the railways amidst the busy MTA and NYC schedule.