The container ship that was stuck in the Suez Canal and halted global trade woke up one morning and chose chaos. And you know what? I respect that. Because I too, wake up and rub the sleep from my eyes and decide what havoc I will wreak on the world. I don’t make that big of a scene, but one can always set high aspirations. Honestly, when Billy Joel sang “Trouble in the Suez” in We Didn’t Start the Fire, we didn’t realize the impact that would hold. Good for him, we love a psychic. That’s So Raven versus Billy Joel? The matchup of the lifetime. I would let them see into my future; I’m sure it’s filled with just a bunch of shoes I impulsively bought if I am being honest, but a future is a future nonetheless.
Some background information for those not familiar with the matter: the Ever Given (or as my roommate calls it, ‘the everglade’), created a traffic jam of 300+ ships. It caused an economic impact and one the “world’s busiest trading routes was costing the global economy $400 million per hour.” Basically: thin canal, big ship, bad turn.
While the ship is now unstuck, for almost a week we as a collective were given so much meme material to work with. The jokes on Reddit and Twitter were truly revolutionary.
But now, as I cannot even get my hair brush unstuck from my hair let alone a 1,300-foot-long ship, I cannot relate to it anymore.
I think this incident is kind of a prime example of life. At the risk of doing what I am known to do (taking a seemingly meaningless event and twisting it to become this deep metaphor)… I think this truly shows how you cannot plan for everything. The Suez Canal has been around since 1868, and yet never has something like this occurred. In all of global trading history… we never prepared for this? It was the maritime traffic jam of the century, and we all were like “maybe we can just nudge it a bit.” Like honestly maybe we should have tried to turn the Suez Canal on and off again. Then the problem would’ve been solved.
But what I think I am getting at is that life often throws curveballs at us that we aren’t prepared for or never expected. And there’s no option to course correct. Sometimes we are the Ever Given ship blocking and sometimes we are the blocked. I’m sure many ships have been held up waiting for me to get out of the way and I’ve definitely had to sit patiently while just trying to deliver my bananas for life to remove some roadblock. So yes, I did indeed glance at the news for this past week and at my core, relate to the drama of it all. While I wish the Suez Canal the best, I will miss her and her messy nature. You go girl! You give them nothing! It’s fine, I guess I will pick up the slack as the new chaotic queen.
