The Tube Strikes Again

I have to preface this post by saying that Danielle over at Bloody Brilliant wrote essentially what I wanted to write here before I did.  So, Danielle, I have to apologize for copying you.  But you're so right!

(Read her post first.  Go on, click on the link.  Read it!)

There was another Tube strike on Monday.  Another stupid, pointless, frustrating Tube strike.  I believe the unions are angry about a plan to cut 800 jobs, and I've got to say that striking seems counterproductive when protesting against layoffs.  If you want to prove that you're necessary, don't force people to find ways to get along without you.  Duh.

Anyway.  I did find ways to get along without the Tube - I took a train to Victoria and a bus from there to work - and it wasn't horribly painful, although it was very annoying.  But as ticked off as I was about the inconvenience the strike was causing me and millions of other Londoners, I couldn't help but have the same lightbulb moment I've been having for the past three months:

via

I live here.

I live in London.

How cool is that?

And I realized that, to paraphrase Danielle, however crap a Tube strike may be, it's still sort of glamorous, because it's a Tube strike in London.  And I really shouldn't complain about having to deal with trains and buses and a kajillion other commuters who are absolutely out of sorts (to put it mildly) because I'm in London, and that in and of itself makes all the obstacles (like Tube strikes) much less insurmountable.

This doesn't mean that I'm going to stop bitching about things like Tube strikes.  I'm not.  (Call them "cultural differences," if you'd like.)  But I know and you know that behind all the moaning (never complaining) there's a thought.  There's a lightbulb moment:

I live here.

I live in London.

How cool is that?