Rat Takes Pizza Home on the Subway, Et In Terra Pax

Concrete jungle where rats of made of

These are the days of rats and pizza.

Monday, a video of a rat casually descending the stairs of a New York City subway station with an entire slice of pizza creeped up on the Internet.

Jokes were made. Common reference points included Taylor Swift’s song about tourists, Jay Z’s song about ending sentences with prepositions, and increasingly specific gripes about the particular trains of the NYC subway. (e.g. “I bring a slice of pizza for my 20-minute wait for the G,” or “Haha tough luck for him, the L’s out this weekend.”)

Another thing that people joked about was pizza in New York. These were very funny jokes.

The one thing that people seem to agree on is that this is a very good piece of Internet. There’s something in it for everyone: People who don’t live in New York get to say, “It’s fun to visit but I could never live there” and point to this video.

People who live in New York, but maintain an ironic distance from affection for the city would say things like “I think I saw this guy in Bushwick the other day” or “Ha, he’s probably headed to his second job. Rent prices in this city, amiright? Thanks, de Blasio!” (That is a very funny joke about New York City’s current mayor.) People who love New York unquestioningly said “Only in New York,” and this was one of the only situations where that phrase genuinely applied.

Some people empathized with pizza rat. “Pizza rat is my everything” was a thing people were saying. “I can’t with pizza rat” was another, which was either a good or bad thing, or both, or neither. It doesn’t matter.

Pizza rat doesn’t care. Pizza rat was before the Internet and will exist long after the Internet or pizza.

Pizza rat abides.