So, Do You Pee Here Often? (aka Urine for a Great Surprise)

At a nebulous point in the past few years I've learned to become a little more oblivious to the people around me in this city. Well, I take that back -- there are times when I deliberately tune in to the humanity that swirls deliciously around me, and I'm still enthralled and entertained by it all. But it's not my default anymore. The default is to move through without as much notice, so as to not be overloaded with the details of it all.

Anyway. On to my story.

So today I'm standing on the corner and partially blocking the front of a pay phone booth - not a real Superman-style telephone booth, or a quaint red London-style booth, but a gritty New York half-booth that is more just a three-sided shell that begins waist high and is covered with stickers and graffiti. Many times they don't even have a receiver because someone has decided a yellow pay phone receiver is Just the Thing They Need and cut it off. But this one did have a receiver, so when a man walked up and said, "May I please make a call?" with such correct grammar and polite-ivity, I quickly stepped to the side of the booth to make room for him and allow him some three sided, waist up, pay phone privacy. And I went on to not noticing him anymore.

Until.

Well, do you remember when I first moved here, and I warned you that mysteriousness drips on your head quite a bit? And when it happens you squint your eyes and cross your fingers and hope that it's a gift from the nearby air conditioner and not the nearby pigeon? Remember that? Well, I've kinda become immune to the drips as well, so when a little bit of something wet dusted my Old Navy flip flop shod left foot, I sadly didn't immediately tune in. No, no. I waited until a little something more graced my baby toe until I looked and realized that while my polite friend may have been holding the receiver with his right hand, he was holding something else with his left hand. And was peeing. Directly on the sidewalk. 6 inches away from my foot.

(Go ahead, shudder as you imagine how far liquid can ricochet off a hard surface. It was reality for me, my friends.)

I don't think him polite any longer.

In honor of this occasion, enjoy the world premiere of this original work of poetry, written by an extremely talented but anonymous author:

There once was an inebriated man
Faked a call and instead used the can.
The sidewalk his aim
But my foot's not the same.
Broadway peeing they really should ban.

Ah, yes. See how cultured I've become since moving here?

Enough. I'm not being facetious when I say I do love this city.