This is really unpleasant

So don't say I didn't warn you. Really, if you want to respect me as a lady you will not read this. I can't respect myself as a lady having lived it. Those of you who don't care, or who think the city is glamorous, ought to read on to learn it's not.
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Last night, or early this morning, rather, Deo's closet fell apart. Everything on the rack and her shelf just came crashing down as she slept soundly. Apparently she screamed when it happened, but I didn't hear because I learned to tune out loud noises when I lived on First Hill. She came out and let me know what happened because surely her scream would have woken me. I offered to help in the rather pathetic way that a person jolted awake from REM sleep offers to do anything. She said she'd deal with it in the morning. Whatever. Deo's room is destroyed; no biggie. I went back to sleep and woke up at six fairly well-rested.

This unusual occurrence should have served as an omen.

I got ready for work and hit the bus like usual. My route is such that I have to transfer downtown and wait about ten minutes for the second bus that takes me to work. The transfer stop is a crowded one, buses come every minute and people are in and out of 'em in a constant stream. My stop is also a popular hang out for homeless people or all-night drunks looking for a morning cigarette.

This morning I was particularly engrossed in my book, so I took a seat on one of the benches. The woman to my left was sucking down a Camel Light, but I was downwind of her so I didn't get too much of the stench. The man to my right looked like a freaky mannequin model of Crackheadedness. His skin was the dark tan of the Summer Homeless. His hair was long and scraggly and covered with a baseball cap. He wore a Starter jacket, dirty jean shorts and black worker's boots. His face was so motionless, staring as he was at a distant point across the street, that it reminded me of a British guard at Buckingham Palace.

After staring (probably rudely) at him for a moment I looked back down at my book. A moment later I smelled the unmistakable stench of shit. Sometimes you think something smells like poo, but it's really just old garbage or something. This waft of air was gaggingly and definitely the odor of feces. I'm a big baby so I'm sure my face contorted in disgust and I put my hand to my nose so that I could smell my lotion. I looked left and I looked right. Cigarette lady had been replaced by a small and stylish Asian girl whose head was turned away from the shit smell. Mannequin Man was still staring at exactly the same place he had been when last I ogled him.

I couldn't take the smell so I stood up and walked down the block fifteen or twenty feet. When I seemed to be free of the nauseating stench I turned to look back for its source. I saw nothing. Then- and I'm not kidding and I'm getting goosebumps and chills just thinking about it- Mannequin Man stood sudenly and jaywalked across the street. Diarrhea dripped from the depths of his shorts on down his legs and onto his boots. Yeah; he just sat there on the bus stop bench and shit himself without moving a muscle and then got up and walked across the street.

One: I'm never sitting on a public bench again
Two: I almost vomited at the sight of this so my protest at public defecation is a little hypocritical
Three: B. used to tell me about this man in Tacoma who urinated and defecated on public benches so often that the city had a budget in place for cleaning up after him. That story used to make me laugh. Now it makes me want to cry.
Four: If someone got sprayed by this man's dirty, dirty D and he has hepatitis they might contract the disease. This is highly unlikely, I know, but a threat nevertheless.

I felt sick all morning at work. Moms deal with little kids crapping themselves all the time, I told myself, so why am I being so fussy? My old boss told me that he was running around Greenlake one day when a girl ahead of him, "Eliminated herself." That's Dave speak for crapping one's pants. She was freaking out, so he took his shirt off and gave it to her to tie around her waist. Then she disappeared into the bathroom and he didn't wait for her to come out because she was probably too embarrassed to face him. When I heard that story I felt sorry for the girl.

My old track coach told me that at one of his high school state track meets, the boy who would go on to win the 800 meter race shat himself in his tiny track short during the final 150 meters. He just kept running as fast as he could until he won the race, at which point he promptly disappeared from the field. I felt sorry for that guy slash awkward to have that conversation with my high school track coach.

I did not feel sorry for the guy at the bus stop. I feel violated by him. Drew told me recently that one of her coworkers had to jump over a pool of Diarrhea at the hospital and was rather traumatized by the experience and did not come to work the next day, so I know I'm not the only fussy person. Others at the bus stop this morning, when we collectively witnessed Cracky the Crapper walk away all soiled in shit, gaped in horror and moved quickly from the scene. We exchanged looks, but in the Seattle style of polite strangeness did not utter words to each other about the quiet scene that had just unfolded. Eventually, we knew, the owner of the Specter Sports Bar would come along and realize there was a puddle of poo near the door of his establishment and hose it down so as not to deter customers. It probably happens all the time.

If I were you, reader, I would not believe this story. When I recount my many run-ins with the druggy members of society people generally cannot relate other than with one or two experiences. Most likely I am subject to frequent encounters because I utilize public transportation and spend unusually large amounts of time at the $186 million homeless shelter Seattle calls a library. I assure you, though, that this happened today and it happens often... In other places... When I'm pleasantly not near.

I can't really make any conclusions or policy-minded suggestions that are not mildly hysterical at this point, but you there in your suburban stupors, the rumors are true. The cities are full of drug addicts and filthy benches and the buses smell like B.O. on a good day and the bus stops smell like shit on a regular one. Today I want nothing more than to be an ignorant Bellinghamian slight-hippie again.