As a native New Yorker, I have built up a significant tolerance to foul smells.
While visitors and the uninitiated walk through the streets of Chinatown and Midtown pinching their noses, I suck in the "freshness" of the New York air without much pause. But even I have a low tolerance for scat odors. I mean, this is one of the most sophisticated cities in the world. Why do I need to smell anyone else's poo? Especially in public.
Well, no matter how much I think it should happen, people do crap the subway car from time to time...or at least their pants while in the subway. It tends to be homeless and/or people who are severely mentally ill.
If a subway rider (or sleeper) has soiled himself publicly (it's usually a he), in the afternoon when there is no rush-hour congestion in the subway, most olfactory-enabled riders simply move to another car and it's all goodish. But when this kind of offense occurs during rush hour, people are forced to just sit or stand there and deal with it. Ooh. That can be hard to do.
The other day, I was in this unfortunate circumstance. It was 8:15 AM and the subway was packed. I was lucky to find a sliver of space to squeeze into on the 8:15 train and wasn't about to let some poo make me late for work.
The smell hit me right smack in the face, almost dividing my nose directly down the middle - it was that awful. Of course I did my due diligence and scoffed and hissed aloud, looking around at my neighbors with a combination of disdain for their potential participation in the offensive odor, sympathy for their co-suffering at the hands of the maniac who made this stink, and horror to make it clear I was not involved in the smell.
I had only made it about seven inches through the door when I entered the subway on 96th Street. As I stood, squished between an uncountable mass of coat-wearing, brief-case holding 9-to-5ers, I decided that I had to move across the subway car somehow, to further investigate where this smell was coming from and possibly see if the air were a few whiffs lighter on the other side of the car.
I managed to find a 1-foot clearing where I could actually stand upright and find a piece of poll to wrap a finger or two around. Bliss.
Unfortunately, when I stood upright, I actually found myself in an even more pungent whiffing spot. Lucky me. Life in New York just doesn't get better.
Anyway, by this time, the subway had pulled into the 86th Street station where a few passengers exited and a few got on - one of whom was a middle-aged lawyerly-looking matron who found herself at my side just as she seemed to notice the odor that was already such a significant part of everyone else's day.
Our eyes met as her accusing stare rested upon my face. In my periphery I saw her raised nose pointing at my head as she casually walked back to the door she had entered through.
What a bitch.
Showing posts with label homeless. Show all posts
Showing posts with label homeless. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 19, 2014
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Why I Love Public Transportation
I haven't blogged for a while and have been hatin' on my daily trips to work, so I'm going to take a moment to digitally ponder my life as a commuter.
My mother is a life-long New Yorker. That means she can't drive. Given that situation, I have been forced onto subways and buses since I was old enough to walk.
Mom didn't stroller me into subways and buses because that involved carrying stuff and slowed her down - and Mom liked to move fast. She used to be one of those race-walkers - only she used high-heels instead of sneakers.
Ma didn't want to waste time by trying to stuff my stroller into a bus or train. That's probably why I walked when I was just 7 months old - she wanted to make sure I was ready for the commute and wouldn't slow her down.
Anyway, I traveled on the number 12 bus and the number 6 train from as far back as I can remember, with my mother. I recall being like four and my mother running and making me follow her through the sliding doors that link the subway cars so that we could get to the middle car where the conductor was. That was the 70s and a woman with a small kid was ripe for being mugged in New York and she felt comforted by Jerome and his lethal flashlight. The fact that I was terrified of falling between cars didn't seem to faze my mother who sometimes was three or four steps ahead of me. I usually closed my eyes when I stepped from one car to the other, holding my breath and letting out a sigh of relief each time I made it across the mysterious abyss that peaked through the gap between the subway cars.
I remember how the lights used to go on and off all the time on the subways (which were covered in graffiti) - whenever the subway came to a stop. Sometimes we'd be stuck in a dark tunnel for ten minutes with nothing but B.O. to give me a sense that anyone else was around. Had the train needed to be evacuated, I'd have to follow the stink of other commuters to find my way out. I've never had good night vision. Good nightmares, but not good night vision.
As I grew older, the AIDS epidemic began to take its toll on the heroin-shooting homeless of New York and they became more aggressive about panhandling on the subways. From the time I was in high school until the first year of the Giuliani administration, I swear I never got on a subway without at least one would-be homeless person coming into the car to announce that he or she had had AIDS yet they were not drug addicts nor were they alcoholics and that they were trying very hard to get back into life via some form of treatment. Sometimes they'd add that they had six or seven children at home to feed. It's interesting to think that they were shooting heroine with six or seven kids at home who needed things like food and diapers.
I don't mean to sound unsympathetic to AIDS victims. I mean to sound unsympathetic to annoying people who smell bad. I am totally unsympathetic to people who choose their own cards and then expect others to pay up when they're dealt the losing hand. Furthermore, to be frank, these beggars were very annoying. They were even more annoying than the mental case riders without AIDS - who had all their limbs and none of their marbles. At least I could laugh at them without feeling guilty.
Over time the little sympathy I have for beggars on the subway has diminished to virtually no sympathy at all. Recently, as the Giuliani effect has weakened, the beggars have started to return to the subway. A month or so ago a man came into my subway car, reporting to those that weren't wearing iPods, that he had been looking for a job for over 6 months to support his family. He finally found one, but, unfortunately, he needed to make an initial investment of 325 dollars to get started in this new "job".
I think one guy gave him a dollar just because it was a fairly novel approach to begging on the subway.
As ridiculous as it sounded, I felt in the back of my mind that maybe he really did need the money to buy a suit or something and that maybe he wasn't a crack head.
About two-weeks later I was riding the same subway at more-or-less the same time and the same dude comes into the car and gives the same lame sob story, except this time the initial investment is $285 dollars.
Either he just makes up these figures or he was making very slow progress.
Either way, I still didn't give him any money.
My mother is a life-long New Yorker. That means she can't drive. Given that situation, I have been forced onto subways and buses since I was old enough to walk.
Mom didn't stroller me into subways and buses because that involved carrying stuff and slowed her down - and Mom liked to move fast. She used to be one of those race-walkers - only she used high-heels instead of sneakers.
Ma didn't want to waste time by trying to stuff my stroller into a bus or train. That's probably why I walked when I was just 7 months old - she wanted to make sure I was ready for the commute and wouldn't slow her down.
Anyway, I traveled on the number 12 bus and the number 6 train from as far back as I can remember, with my mother. I recall being like four and my mother running and making me follow her through the sliding doors that link the subway cars so that we could get to the middle car where the conductor was. That was the 70s and a woman with a small kid was ripe for being mugged in New York and she felt comforted by Jerome and his lethal flashlight. The fact that I was terrified of falling between cars didn't seem to faze my mother who sometimes was three or four steps ahead of me. I usually closed my eyes when I stepped from one car to the other, holding my breath and letting out a sigh of relief each time I made it across the mysterious abyss that peaked through the gap between the subway cars.
I remember how the lights used to go on and off all the time on the subways (which were covered in graffiti) - whenever the subway came to a stop. Sometimes we'd be stuck in a dark tunnel for ten minutes with nothing but B.O. to give me a sense that anyone else was around. Had the train needed to be evacuated, I'd have to follow the stink of other commuters to find my way out. I've never had good night vision. Good nightmares, but not good night vision.
As I grew older, the AIDS epidemic began to take its toll on the heroin-shooting homeless of New York and they became more aggressive about panhandling on the subways. From the time I was in high school until the first year of the Giuliani administration, I swear I never got on a subway without at least one would-be homeless person coming into the car to announce that he or she had had AIDS yet they were not drug addicts nor were they alcoholics and that they were trying very hard to get back into life via some form of treatment. Sometimes they'd add that they had six or seven children at home to feed. It's interesting to think that they were shooting heroine with six or seven kids at home who needed things like food and diapers.
I don't mean to sound unsympathetic to AIDS victims. I mean to sound unsympathetic to annoying people who smell bad. I am totally unsympathetic to people who choose their own cards and then expect others to pay up when they're dealt the losing hand. Furthermore, to be frank, these beggars were very annoying. They were even more annoying than the mental case riders without AIDS - who had all their limbs and none of their marbles. At least I could laugh at them without feeling guilty.
Over time the little sympathy I have for beggars on the subway has diminished to virtually no sympathy at all. Recently, as the Giuliani effect has weakened, the beggars have started to return to the subway. A month or so ago a man came into my subway car, reporting to those that weren't wearing iPods, that he had been looking for a job for over 6 months to support his family. He finally found one, but, unfortunately, he needed to make an initial investment of 325 dollars to get started in this new "job".
I think one guy gave him a dollar just because it was a fairly novel approach to begging on the subway.
As ridiculous as it sounded, I felt in the back of my mind that maybe he really did need the money to buy a suit or something and that maybe he wasn't a crack head.
About two-weeks later I was riding the same subway at more-or-less the same time and the same dude comes into the car and gives the same lame sob story, except this time the initial investment is $285 dollars.
Either he just makes up these figures or he was making very slow progress.
Either way, I still didn't give him any money.
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