only in new york, kids...

I awoke this morning to find the following message in my inbox:

Dear Rebecca,

Over 28,000 doormen, elevator operators, porters and other residential building employees have indicated that they will strike at 11:59 p.m. Tuesday, April 20, 2010, if agreement is not reached on the terms of a new collective bargaining agreement.

A strike may impact FreshDirect orders scheduled for delivery Wednesday, April 21 and beyond. We encourage customers in potentially affected buildings to stock up now and schedule delivery for Tuesday or sooner. We will post updates to the status of our delivery service at the top of the FreshDirect.com home page. We will also provide additional information by email as it becomes available.

As always, thank you for being a valued FreshDirect customer. Whether or not a strike occurs, we will do everything in our power to deliver high-quality service and food.

Sincerely,

FreshDirect Customer Service 

For those who've never tried it, FreshDirect is a grocery delivery service. Basically you log on to their website, click the stuff you want to order, choose a delivery time, and wait for everything to show up at your door. It's especially popular among New Yorkers, since most of us don't have cars, and cooking a big meal can easily require 2-3 trips to the grocery store. I don't use it regularly, but it's great for dinner parties and holidays, or for ordering heavy stuff like bags of flour or cases of bottled water.

I'm not knocking FreshDirect, but this e-mail did make me laugh. Where else but New York would people launch into panic mode because the doorman might not be there to accept the groceries! New Yorkers don't even freak out when there's a snowstorm--I've never witnessed the "bread and milk" rush common in other parts of the country--but no doorman? That's a crisis. "Stock up now!" the e-mail urges. Do it! Otherwise, you might have to (gasp!) accept the groceries for yourself, or (double gasp!) actually go to the grocery store! 

It's really not that difficult, people. Poor, doorman-less souls like me have been doing it for years.