Testify with me, residents of Center City and an ever-creeping portion of its farther reaches: There is essentially no space on the central Philly grid that still guarantees safety from this Erin Express garbage. In recent years, this strange douche safari has grown from the days when, to celebrate St. Patrick’s day, school busses filled with Villanova students and the like would come downtown to visit designated hellspaces like Finnegan’s Wake. (R.I.P., maybe? Was it better when things like this were segregated from the mainland?)
Today, the Erin Express is a kind of seasonal industry that goes hand in hand with the Running Of The Santas a couple of months previous each year. And increasingly, it is free range. If we were going to go really dark on this, we could testify even more strongly and say that the wild, unchecked privilege of this “City Is My Playground” class of basic boys and girls is in fact somehow dovetailing with the concurrent wild, unchecked privilege that is also driving the gentrification for several neighborhoods at once.
But that’s not why we’re here. We’re here to speculate on what suburb you could hide in, reverse-commute-style, while Brittney from Broomall answers nature’s call in your alley. Herewith, then, the sum total of our knowledge of the suburbs that will help you in this mission:
NARBERTH: There is a cheese shop there. And also, a movie theatre.
CHESTNUT HILL: There is a good record store there, and also the place that invented the Schmitter. (We realize that Chestnut Hill is technically within the city limits, but c’mon.)
MERION: If the forecast wasn’t a high of 32 degrees, we’d say take mushrooms and walk around the Merion Botanical Gardens. Perhaps you could instead arrive at the Seminary out there, and announce your wishes to no longer live as a lay person.
CHADDS FORD: Oh, now you’re talking. Go to the Brandywine Museum! Party with Helga!
PRINCETON: This is genius. Go hide in Princeton. They’ll never think to look for you there.
DELCO: This is a far more difficult task than we thought when we were like, “Oh, let’s just recommend some suburbs to hide out in while white choads literally spent the day purging their bowels in our green and pleasant country towne!”
DOYLESTOWN: This much we know: It exists.
NEW HOPE: Oh god, thank god for New Hope. Wait, do they have this Erin Express shit there, too? I don’t have the heart to Google it. You Google it. I already have my plans set.
I am building a fort.