Do you live in the greater New York City area? Do you frequently ride the subway? Have you experienced true and deep misery riding the subway? If you answered yes to those first two questions, you almost certainly answered yes to that third one. So why not make that misery work for you? Cash in on your deeply terrible, near-death commuting experience. Go viral! Get internet famous for 10 seconds. Sell your video or pictures or whatever to an internet content farm and buy yourself some nice cases of seltzer with the profits. But how, you might be asking yourself now that you’ve realized this is a totally brilliant and attainable idea. Allow me to explain.
Find a rat.
This week’s top MTA horror story involves a rat trapped inside a Metro Card vending machine. Yes, you read that right. Yes, it’s gross. Yes, I wish I had been the one to find and film the dumb vermin.
It doesn’t even have to be a real rat, if real rats gross you out. Pizza rat was a hoax. You probably heard about it anyway.
Nearly sweat to death.
What’s a few hours in the hot and dark compared to 15 minutes of having a similarly hot tweet? It’s nothing, I tell you. Nothing.
Improvise a little.
Who needs to ride in the subway cars when you can just ride outside them for better air circulation. This seems very safe and smart and like a thing you should definitely do if you want to be internet famous. Or want your forearm to be internet famous.
Almost get eaten by an escalator.
If while riding an escalator you hear an alarming crunching noise like metal bones being broken, remain calm. Forget that this could be incredibly dangerous for you — and perhaps make mobility impossible for anyone not physically capable of climbing stairs once the escalator is taken out of commission — and record with abandon.
Miss an important life moment.
Step one: Spend several years paying for and studying for a nursing degree. Step two: Board subway to go attend your graduation from said program. Step three: Realize the stalled subway means you’re going to miss said graduation. Step four: Rely on the kindness of others and celebrate your accomplishment in a makeshift ceremony staged by strangers.
Discover a waterfall.
Subway stations are, believe it or not, supposed to be dry. They are not supposed to gush like Niagara Falls. If you find one that is gushing like Niagara Falls, congrats! Whip out that camera and prep your tweet.
