stank breath and smeared shit
The weather has been fluctuating like the hormones of a beast in heat. If I had a set of nuts to call my own, they would have been long gone by this week, having shriveled up and fallen into the gutter from breakage due to a frozen condition. This week, I would have lost them to 80-degree-plus weather which, I have heard, enables them to get lost due to sweat. In any case, we've been experiencing some moody aspects of Mother Nature on the East Coast lately.
With all of this back-and-forth wishy-washy-flim-flam-type weather, in the past 10 days I've caught myself several times in the precarious position of trying to avoid germ infestation during my morning and evening commutes.
It all started about seven days ago when I was peacefully trying to catch a bit of shut-eye while thanking goodness repeatedly that I had actually gotten a seat. As I drifted between bushy-tailed consciousness and r.e.m., it hit me like a two-by-four. Ugh. Stank breath. Emanating from...the nicely groomed young woman sitting next to me. WTF?! I have no tolerance for putrid smells coming from people who obviously have access to a shower and enough money to buy toothpaste and a mint. But this brand of stank breath practically told me its story, letting out a little sentence each time the chick exhaled through her widely-parted dry lips. Stank breath explained to me: "Brushed my teeth this morning," - inhale - "even brushed out my tongue" - inhale - "but I've had nothing to eat yet today" - inhale - "not even a piece of gum."
Although it explained a lot, my new friend was intimate enough so that I started feeling a little sick from its presence. But it continued: "I'm not feeling so hot myself" - inhale - "my throat's a little sore" - inhale - "With mucus backed up in my nose," - inhale - "it makes me cough so much more."
By this time I had had quite enough of Stank Breath and its stupid owner and was thoroughly pissed off at having been so blatantly germinated. But I convinced myself that I just don't get colds - no, I just don't. And that was that for the time being. There is more to say about the process by which I came to this point of fighting off the cold that threatens to render me fatigued and cranky, but I will leave it at these observations:
1. The people on today's A train, particularly the skinny, listless 40-something year-old with the backwards baseball cap and MTV youth-like demeanor sitting RIGHT NEXT TO ME, do not know how to turn away from the people next to whom they are sitting when coughing up a fucking lung, thirty years of cigarettes and two-weeks' worth of mucus.
2. The people on today's A train couldn't give two shits about coughing into their grubby little mitts and smearing their fresh spittle onto the pole they're holding. (Can we at least get a courtesy palm-rub-to-the-pants-before-you-resume-pole-holding?)
3. The people on today's A train were sneezing and coughing up some phlegm that, by the rich, gutteral sound of it, has apparently been incubating for some time. It was like a damned symphony with surround sound today. The Philharmonic could not have composed a better score for public transit.
4. One person on today's A train had the nastiest perfume ever. It was like Raid and roses mixed into one deadly combination. I was seriously hoping it wasn't some kind of biological warfare. Just as I was thinking I'd actually rather smell the organic funk of an unwashed person, my prayers were answered. Enter Man obviously without easy access to shower facilities, as I am sure it had been days and days since he had last seen soap and water, poor guy. Dressed in all black winter clothing, he dragged a black garbage bag behind him and pulled up into the seat next to me. After several stops, and me being too fragile to handle too many smells in one day, I went to stand in the other side of the car. That's when 40-something cougher with the backwards hat, tank and shorts and bony knees came into my life to breathe more virus into it.
THEN I get to school looking for the restroom that usually reeks of bleach in the morning (which I love) to take a long-awaited pee. Pushing the door open, I realize immediately that something is off...waaaayyy off. The restroom smells like shit. Literally shit. But, after a lifetime of experiencing public restrooms, I have come to the grave conclusion that some people just tend to stink up the place with their b.o. All it takes is a pulling down of the pants. Gross, but true. So I chalk it up to b.o., go towards the stall, and gingerly push the door in with my index finger. Holy shit...it's shit. All over the freaking seat. Smeared, as if someone made a real half-assed job in trying to clean up their own excrement. I am grossed out and enraged. How the hell can someone just leave their shit all over the place like that for someone else to clean up?! As many times as I've seen this scenario (which is more times than any person should see), I always wonder, WTF. Do you not understand that someone now has to bend, scrub, hose, deal to make this place safe again for the rest of us?! This is why, sometimes, people are a real fucking pain. Clean up your shit. Don't smear it everywhere. Leave the place like you found it. That's all. It's not rocket science.
Needing to channel the sudden burst of energy that came with my outrage over seeing the smeared shit, I ran down six flights of stairs, crossed over one building, down another two flights of stairs to a restroom that was suitable, and most importantly, far, far away.
Yeesh. What a start to the day.
With all of this back-and-forth wishy-washy-flim-flam-type weather, in the past 10 days I've caught myself several times in the precarious position of trying to avoid germ infestation during my morning and evening commutes.
It all started about seven days ago when I was peacefully trying to catch a bit of shut-eye while thanking goodness repeatedly that I had actually gotten a seat. As I drifted between bushy-tailed consciousness and r.e.m., it hit me like a two-by-four. Ugh. Stank breath. Emanating from...the nicely groomed young woman sitting next to me. WTF?! I have no tolerance for putrid smells coming from people who obviously have access to a shower and enough money to buy toothpaste and a mint. But this brand of stank breath practically told me its story, letting out a little sentence each time the chick exhaled through her widely-parted dry lips. Stank breath explained to me: "Brushed my teeth this morning," - inhale - "even brushed out my tongue" - inhale - "but I've had nothing to eat yet today" - inhale - "not even a piece of gum."
Although it explained a lot, my new friend was intimate enough so that I started feeling a little sick from its presence. But it continued: "I'm not feeling so hot myself" - inhale - "my throat's a little sore" - inhale - "With mucus backed up in my nose," - inhale - "it makes me cough so much more."
By this time I had had quite enough of Stank Breath and its stupid owner and was thoroughly pissed off at having been so blatantly germinated. But I convinced myself that I just don't get colds - no, I just don't. And that was that for the time being. There is more to say about the process by which I came to this point of fighting off the cold that threatens to render me fatigued and cranky, but I will leave it at these observations:
1. The people on today's A train, particularly the skinny, listless 40-something year-old with the backwards baseball cap and MTV youth-like demeanor sitting RIGHT NEXT TO ME, do not know how to turn away from the people next to whom they are sitting when coughing up a fucking lung, thirty years of cigarettes and two-weeks' worth of mucus.
2. The people on today's A train couldn't give two shits about coughing into their grubby little mitts and smearing their fresh spittle onto the pole they're holding. (Can we at least get a courtesy palm-rub-to-the-pants-before-you-resume-pole-holding?)
3. The people on today's A train were sneezing and coughing up some phlegm that, by the rich, gutteral sound of it, has apparently been incubating for some time. It was like a damned symphony with surround sound today. The Philharmonic could not have composed a better score for public transit.
4. One person on today's A train had the nastiest perfume ever. It was like Raid and roses mixed into one deadly combination. I was seriously hoping it wasn't some kind of biological warfare. Just as I was thinking I'd actually rather smell the organic funk of an unwashed person, my prayers were answered. Enter Man obviously without easy access to shower facilities, as I am sure it had been days and days since he had last seen soap and water, poor guy. Dressed in all black winter clothing, he dragged a black garbage bag behind him and pulled up into the seat next to me. After several stops, and me being too fragile to handle too many smells in one day, I went to stand in the other side of the car. That's when 40-something cougher with the backwards hat, tank and shorts and bony knees came into my life to breathe more virus into it.
THEN I get to school looking for the restroom that usually reeks of bleach in the morning (which I love) to take a long-awaited pee. Pushing the door open, I realize immediately that something is off...waaaayyy off. The restroom smells like shit. Literally shit. But, after a lifetime of experiencing public restrooms, I have come to the grave conclusion that some people just tend to stink up the place with their b.o. All it takes is a pulling down of the pants. Gross, but true. So I chalk it up to b.o., go towards the stall, and gingerly push the door in with my index finger. Holy shit...it's shit. All over the freaking seat. Smeared, as if someone made a real half-assed job in trying to clean up their own excrement. I am grossed out and enraged. How the hell can someone just leave their shit all over the place like that for someone else to clean up?! As many times as I've seen this scenario (which is more times than any person should see), I always wonder, WTF. Do you not understand that someone now has to bend, scrub, hose, deal to make this place safe again for the rest of us?! This is why, sometimes, people are a real fucking pain. Clean up your shit. Don't smear it everywhere. Leave the place like you found it. That's all. It's not rocket science.
Needing to channel the sudden burst of energy that came with my outrage over seeing the smeared shit, I ran down six flights of stairs, crossed over one building, down another two flights of stairs to a restroom that was suitable, and most importantly, far, far away.
Yeesh. What a start to the day.