Urinetown

Two urine-related posts in a row! Sweet.


This morning while riding the train, I noticed a man holding a glass bottle. It was a Voss "Artesian" water container; the one that goes for upwards of $10 in some of the city's unbearably posh nightspots. Sloshing around inside the container was a translucent yellow liquid that I'm 95% sure was urine. I was a bit incredulous at first, but all signs pointed to this being the case. First the color was just too familiar. Apple juice usually has a darker tinge, some gradation of amber. It wasn't florescent enough to be Gatorade or some other sports drink/sugar water concoction. Also there was condensate inside the glass, indicating that, whatever the liquid was, it had given off some kind of heat.

Nope, there was no doubt in my mind, the guy had urine in the glass. So naturally all I could think was WTF? Seriously, man: WTF? Put it in a plastic bag at least. That's a friggin' biohazard, a code-red-"28 Days Later"-incident waiting to happen. What if the train were to come to a sudden stop? What if it slipped? What if his hand got bumped? What on earth was this guy thinking? It just made no sense. And then I wondered: where exactly is this fellow off to? Doctor's office? Drug test for a job? What situation would require production of an off-site sample? He looked like a normal guy. Not homeless or otherwise perturbed. He was just a guy riding the subway...clutching a cylinder of urine. I pray it was at least his own.

The city never ceases to amaze...or disgust.

Illustrations of Hood Pathology

Quite often I'll walk past the garbage bins in front of my building and get the bum's rush courtesy of the overwhelming ammonia smell of urine. I always wonder, "Who is peeing in the trash?" I always hope that it's maybe stray cats or some other animal, but I know it's probably some dude.

Well the other night I came home from a party sometime in the early morning and saw some dude who most likely lives in my building, taking a whiz right in the garbage bin area. He couldn't be bothered to go upstairs to his apartment. Nor could he bother to use a tree or perhaps the sewage drain in the street. No, he had to pee in a heavily trafficked common area. Why? I guess for the same reason you have the pervasive "piss in the elevator"-phenomenon found in low-income housing complexes; the same reason I find less vigilant dog-curbing in my neighborhood; the same reason people flagrantly toss food wrappers and other debris on the sidewalks of the neighborhood they live in. I see it as a lack of self-respect. If you don't value the environment that you inhabit, then you don't much value yourself. That's of course much too simplistic a view, but I think there is a grain of truth in it.