Friday, February 19, 2010

if you spill, don't just refill.

I ain't got much decorum but I got some. I may not be a fully functioning member of society but there are some of the meetings that I am allowed to attend. A few of my pins are firing. I know how to get dressed. Leaning towards just slipping into a moo moo these days or a emptied out pickle barrel but I can assure you my street moo and my street barrel are relatively clean. Now the way I was brought up, and I think this is true of most folks, it was just natural to change your shirt if say you poured a slurpee down your front or dropped a plate of spaghetti and meatballs on yourself. If you shit your pants or peed all over yourself switching to a new pair of britches was the order of the day. Into adulthood I somehow managed to cling to these articles of faith. But of late in the course of my meanderings around the city and especially it seems in the Market Street and 6th Street corridor environs there appears to be no such compunction for quite a large swath of individuals.

I was on MUNI yesterday. Prayers were recited and good luck charms were rubbed. And yet despite these precautions in the middle of the day the driver unloaded all of his passengers at the island on Market and Van Ness because it was his turn for a coffee break and there was no one waiting to assume the wheel. What the fuck is wrong with this city? Here's an idea. Bring a fucking thermos. I have no illusions about the field of bus drivery. It must suck to drive a bus in this decaying city. There are no smiley face Thomas the Train types chugging along through bucolic landscapes here. More often than not if you dare to let your defenses down for a moment to look out upon the passing city you'll just see some bum dropping his trousers and shitting on the sidewalk. Wave, sometimes they wave back. They always seem happy. You would be too if you had abandoned civility to the point that you had no qualms about crapping in front of your fellow citizenry. Imagine the sense of freedom. You gotta take a dump? Fuck it, take a dump. None of this looking for a toilet baloney. Toilet paper? Use your hand. Hell, the Islams do it. And we know what a meritous society they've managed to create. A culture in which a man can't shake another man's hand as an act of greeting or solidarity or promise or friendship without fear of getting the other's faeces on his hand is a culture that we need to mobilize our martial forces to destroy. Oh yeah, we already are. Nothing like witnessing a smiling hobo defecating next to your doorstep to set the tone of your day. However be warned sometimes those smiles just turn out to be rigor mortis and that's the final dump you see running like a babbling brook down your sidewalk. The homeless are a tricky crew.


So. Expelled from the bus I opted to walk a few blocks down Market to see what I could see. The people that I passed were of varying stations in life. Some of them looked normal. Of course most did not. And by normal I mean at least partially clothed and capable of walking a straight line. Most looked a bit long in the tooth. Some looked downtrodden. A lot of these people had stains all over their fronts, both the bums and the semi-normal folks. Taco drippings, dried globs of mustard, burnt sheens of ketchup, slobber, boogers, these fucking people were for the most part filthy. They didn't seem to care a wit.


I have encountered the same phenomena at the offices of the DMV. And in this instance the crowd was of a much higher calibre of citizen. You have to assume that most of them had the means to own a vehicle. They didn't have as many cankers on their faces as the 6th Street crowd. And yet they looked like shit. People were lounging around in their pajamas. A woman sitting in the chair next to me looked like she had rubbed green jello into her blouse on purpose. How could you not look down and say shit I need to change my shirt? Or at least cover yourself with a jacket. Not brazenly sit there like a hussy with filth all over your front.


Hey, I'm no saint. If you know me than you know it's no leap of faith to opine that I too soil myself sometimes. Sure I've dropped a meatball out of my mouth and onto my lapels. Sure I have poured gravy all down my front. I've dropped a chicken in my lap on more than one occasion. But I feel shame. I feel terrible shame and I rush to hide my shame stain. I don't parade around out in the open with it like a badge of honor. Look everyone look how disgusting I am!! Look what fell out of the trough and all over me while I was feeding!!! Jesus. I was once caught out in the avenues stained and without a clean shirt to change into. I had been quaffing soda and eating fried rice by the bucket on Clement Street at a greasy chop suey stand and I had a small stroke. A piece of Chinese sausage got stuck in my air hole for a moment and I had a stroke. A small one. I poured Mr. Pibb straight down my front. The rice I dumped on top of a little Chinese hobbit who was unlucky enough to be sitting next to me. Once they revived me I realized I was stained. I begged a trash bag from the proprietor and he gladly obliged I think mostly to get me on my way. I punched a hole at the bottom and pulled it over my head and wore the garbage bag home. Join society people. That's all I'm saying!! Peace be with you and yours.

1 comment:

  1. haha another good laugh i have had while sitting in my camping chair in the ole loungeroom... funny stuff x

    ReplyDelete