I don't think I'm in Kansas anymore

Umm, in case you haven't heard, a tornado hit New York. What the bloody Jesus?

It took me three hours to get from the hovel to the office -- and then when I got there, I was one of only five or so people in my department resourceful enough to navigate the wild, wild world of thousands of stranded subway users, fighting for a bus heading for the Midtown Tunnel.

I did walk about two miles, snicker at a woman trying to vanquish a foot of standing water with a small mop, invite myself to share a taxi with three people who had only limited English skills, and lost my leg to the jaws of the 7 train at the Jackson Heights station, but so be it. Delhi crowds prepared me well; whereas claustrophobic Americans were hysterically imploring fellow riders to "Act like human being, not animals!", I was smugly listening to Golmaal Golmaal ... Everything's Gonna Be Golmaal and wiggling around frenetically, my eyes glazed in bliss.

That said, I thought I would stop dealing with woefully inadequate infrastructure when I left the "third world." So much for conventional notions of modernity and backwardness ...