Ah, the great Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority — a little thing residents of the Philadelphia metropolitan area know ever so fondly as SEPTA. SEPTA operates subways, busses, trolleys, and a regional rail system that travels to the suburbs on the outer reaches of Philadelphia. SEPTA carries students, workers, and even unemployed loafers to and from anything the city of Philadelphia has to offer. Your office? Your doctor’s appointment? Your job interview? Your blind date? SEPTA, good old SEPTA, has got you covered.

Except when it doesn’t.

On November 3, 2009 — with the World Series over, and no longer having to worry about the additional bad publicity a work stoppage during a major event would have caused — SEPTA finally decided to go on strike. Without warning. At 3 in the morning. Perhaps the inconvenience should have been expected from an organization with such a thoroughly negative image — ask any Philadelphian; they’ll be happy to tell you how consistently rude and unhelpful the typical SEPTA worker is.

And that was before the strike.

Imagine yourself, if you will, in this scenario: You are a bright young student. You may be losing your hair a bit in the back and may even be a bit heavy in the love handles (when viewed from certain angles), but you are smart and sharp and gosh darn it, you are the next CEO of GlaxoSmithKline. You are certain of this because you have an interview with GlaxoSmithKline at 8 a.m. on November 4th. So you wake up at 6:30, giving yourself plenty of time to shower and groom and q-tip your ears, and now here you come striding confidently along Market Street toward the nearest entry point into the subway.

And you find the entryway barred off.

Confused, but not to be deterred, you walk another three or four blocks to the next staircase, only to be met again with the indifferent gaze of the metal bars blocking your path to success in life. You could always take a taxi, but for that, you need money, and given that you had sufficient SEPTA fare in your pocket, you left your credit cards at home — you really are trying to get rid of those love handles and you don’t need to make your usual stop-off at 7-11 for a cruller.

So now you power walk all the way back to your apartment, get your credit card, go to 7-11 (and you get the cruller, 2 crullers actually, because you feel the need to offset how stressed and hot and angry and sweaty you are), and storm to the corner to hail a taxi, because love handles or not, you are not walking from 43^rd Street to 16^th Street, especially not in your crisp lovely interview clothes.

You hop into the taxi and twiddle your thumbs to pass the time — which to your consternation there’s a whole lot of. Just like you, thousands of other dismayed residents who woke up to the strike have now been forced into cars and taxis, effectively turning the whole of Philadelphia into a snail race. You miss your interview, go home in abject misery, develop alcoholism, and die at 32.

Okay, maybe I’m extrapolating a bit. But with or without the colorful scenario, heavy traffic, inconvenience, and the danger of walking through unfamiliar sections of the city were all consequences of the 2009 SEPTA strike. Not to mention the literal cost. I know I’ll be seeing about three quarters of my usual paycheck next week, no small thanks to traffic hold-ups on the way to work at 13th and Chestnut Street in Center City.

Fortunately, after nearly a week of toying with an angry but passive city, SEPTA employees graciously ended their strike on November 9th, once their demands were met. Something about percentages. More money for less work. The City of Brotherly Love is running smoothly once again.

Thanks for the outstanding service, SEPTA.

Emily Homrok is a junior studying Film & Video Production. She interns for the Drexel Publishing Group and writes for the Philadelphia Examiner. She is Poetry Editor of FirstStep Press’ Stepping Stones Magazine, and her poetry is forthcoming in Gargoyle Magazine.