Last week, I had just stepped out of my office in Manhattan for my lunch break when I heard a guttural groaning close by and to my left.

“NUUUUUUUUUNNNGGGGHH…GAAAAAHHHHH!”

Turning to look, my eyes were scarred, possibly forever, by the sight of a greasy, smelly, dirty and probably insane homeless guy, semi-squatting on the sidewalk next to me. Mr. Stanky had his pants down and was holding the New York Post under his butt like reading the news with his ass was an everyday thing and taking a huge shit. Whatever the guy’s motives (it was the Post…) or mental maladies, rather than stand around and ponder, I quickly put some anti-stank distance between myself and this man in the process of taking a huge dump at one in the afternoon, in front of my office on Park Avenue.

I’ve been living in New York City for five years now and I can unfortunately admit that this moment of fecal fun was not my first experience of being exposed to the bowel movements of the city’s indigent and insane. If you live in here, at some point you’re going to see some skanky homeless person drop one. It’s horrible, especially when you’re about to get food.

You know you’ve reached the pinnacle of stanky homelessness when you cheerily take your pants down on a crowded street and without a second thought, vomit out of your ass. You are a star amongst your peers. You are captain of the fecal cornucopia. No one can touch you, in large part due to the fact that you smell really fucking bad and more then likely do not wash your hands, ever.

I remember walking down twenty-third street, by Madison Square Park one year and finding my way blocked by a toothless and grinning old woman, skirts raised, gushing a geyser of piss onto the sidewalk. I actually made eye-contact by accident. I recall her idiotic glee far too well. It was a happy pee for her, no doubt.

Another time, I was in my neighborhood in Brooklyn, having just entered the Grand Army Plaza subway station, when as I started down the stairs to the platform, I noticed a neatly dressed and elderly black lady with a nice, middle-class, grandmotherly air about her some distance in front of me. Near the bottom of the stairs, she stopped, put down her shopping bags full of groceries, shuffled a bit and squatted. I thought that she was perhaps tired and had sat on the steps to wait for the train as some people do. Nope. Grandma was taking a piss. After leaving a huge puddle, she hoisted her pants and walked on to the end of the platform, toting her purchases.

I can’t pretend to understand the motives of someone willing to violate this extreme social taboo. I guess you could chalk it up to insanity. Perhaps it’s a lack of any environmental sensitivity due in large part by being socially invisible as a homeless person. However, you can argue that it could be intentional by virtue of this same defense. Hey, look at me! I’m taking a shit on your toy poodle! I’m a person! Whatever the reason, be it defendable or not, it’s fucking disturbing.

I was riding the 2/3 train into Manhattan yesterday morning and as I stood there, blasting that German death metal, as I am wont to do in the mornings, I noticed a middle-aged black woman, seated, knitting and bopping along to whatever was playing on her walkman. Her bag on the floor was overflowing with balls of thread and after a second’s scrutiny, I noticed that aside from her boots, the lady’s entire outfit was made of yarn. She wore a knitted hat, skirt, shirt, vest and socks. Lo and behold, I was in the presence of a yarn junkie at the end stage of the disease.

I stood there thinking that she must be crazy or something. She looked clean enough to be a normal person, but then again, plenty of seriously crazy fucks dress better than I do. Case in point, I once watched a genial looking grandmother type, very tidily dressed, walk to the bottom of the steps to the Q train platform, smile, drop trousers and pee on the floor. Another time, on Wall Street, I witnessed a very dapper businessman get into a one-sided screaming match with a magazine rack that culminated in fisticuffs and a copy of GQ having to go to the emergency room. You just never know.

Anyway, as I stood there pondering the sanity of the yarn lady, we came to a stop and two girls got on, carrying coffee cups. Squeezing through the commuting crush, they ended up right in front of this lady, who upon seeing them, raised her needles threateningly and yelled “You motherfucking bitches better have those coffee lids on tight ’cause if you spill one goddamn drop on me, I’ll fuck your ass right up! I ain’t fucking around, you better watch yourself. Nobody spillin’ coffee on me! I’m from Brooklyn, bitch!”

The two girls, visibly taken aback, mumbled affirmatives in regards to the tight seal on their coffee lids and quickly moved farther down the car, taking care to clear this crazy knit-freak’s needle plunging range. The lady yelled after them, “You damn right you’re moving on! Ain’t nobody spillin’ their shit on me! Damn right you gonna get outta my way, motherfucking bitches!” and then went straight back to knitting and bopping along to her tunes.

Unfortunately, I make it a habit to never bring food or drink on the train. I was sorely wishing I had a cup of coffee so I could get the same attention. Oh well, next time.