The Trash Can Shitter

So sometimes I get hungry for pizza and I go to a pizza place and get pizza. Zany, I know. On this particular occasion, before ordering my delicious slice, I asked for the location of the lavatory. This not being a popular chain, rather just an independent business being run from a 60-year-old building, the washroom was located in a dungeon. I ventured downstairs, through a long winding hall and finally came across the room with a little man symbol on the door. You know that feeling of pride you get when you follow someone’s remarkably simple directions and they pan out just as planned? I had that. When I opened the door I saw a dude shitting in the garbage can. Funny thing about opening a door and seeing a dude shitting in a garbage can, for a second you just watch. Because, for that second, you’re not really sure if you’re actually seeing a dude shitting in a garbage can. Because honestly, why would that be happening? Especially when literally four feet away is a toilet. So the man looked at me and I looked at him and everything was about as still as a Mexican stand off scene in an old Western movie. Only in lieu of a passing tumbleweed, there was the shit this man was snaking into the trash can. And so I closed the door.

Tumbleweed? More like tumble…weed. Fuck.

I hastily journeyed back up the stairs and informed the gentleman behind the counter that there was a bit of a hiccup with the washroom situation, which is to say there was a dude shitting in the garbage can. The guy behind the counter, a man in his 30s with a few too many gold chains around his neck looked at me and actually said, “Again? Jesus, I’m sorry.” I was forced to conclude that this pizza place, like the famous opera house, was haunted by a phantom. Only in this case it was a dude shitting in the trash can.

Crazy Mary

A lot of cities seem to have a famous homeless person. San Francisco had Emperor Norton back in the day, a colorful character who claimed to be Emperor of the United States and could often be seen roaming the streets in his military uniform inspecting sidewalks and street cars. My city had an old lady who called me Fuck Face. Every day after school I would have to travel a stretch of about five blocks on which I would invariably run across the woman locals referred to as Crazy Mary. She was about 4’10” with thinning red hair and a wide variety of brightly colored gypsy-inspired clothes. And a mouth so foul she could make stevedores blush.

10,000 words in this play. All of them are “twat.”

How I came to be known as Fuck Face I’m not sure, but it never changed. She used to call the man with the hot dog cart Cock Hole sometimes, and Ball Juggler at other times. Pretty much any clever combo of offensive terms and/or body parts would find their way into her insult repertoire which, more often than not, was yelled across streets at their victims. But I was Fuck Face, for three years of my run in high school, usually every day of the week. One can only have a crazed little person call them Fuck Face almost 600 times over the course of three years before nervous ticks and self doubt begin to set in. What if I really do have fuck for a face? Are other people too polite to mention it? Is there ointment I can use?

Hobo Bath

My most traumatic run in with a hobo lasted no less than 20 minutes and was about as unpleasant as it could get without degrading into a session of hobo spooning. Basically it involved me hiding in a public washroom stall while a hobo used the sink for a bath. Why did it have to last so long and why couldn’t I flee or fight my way out? Well, for starters, and you may not be aware of this, but NASA and the UFC got together to chart just how intimidating Cracked columnists are and this is what they came up with. As you can see, I have no business trying to start shit with anyone at any time, so if I get cornered in the toilet, I pretty much have to ride it out. It’s science. Plus, if you ever find yourself with your pants down in the same room as a homeless man whose pants are also down, you better remain as quiet as a mouse and pray your clenching reflex doesn’t crap out on you.

This was the first thing that showed up when I Googled “clenching.”

The situation was stacked against me from the start. It was 6am and I was downtown to score tickets for a concert by cleverly being first in line. In fact, the line would not form for another three hours. Unable to wait in a line of just myself for an extended period of time without a restroom break, I wandered to a nearby deserted mall and took up residence in a spacious, relaxing handicapped stall. And as I sat and produced my early morning sin I was interrupted by the sound of the door opening and a faucet turning on. Looking through the crack in my stall door, I was greeted by the site of a sketchy looking fellow stripping away layer after layer of well worn plaid shirts and assorted other hobo accessories which he lumped into a pile one sink over. The situation became more alarming when the pants followed suit. If you’ve never been sitting on a toilet, feeling your own genitals retract as you bear witness to a homeless man in his underpants, I don’t recommend it. The closest feeling I can liken it to is that moment, after eating bad Chinese the night before, when you find yourself stuck in traffic and you realize your stomach is not taking prisoners and you have absolutely no way to end this well.

Pictured: Bad Chinese.

So I sat perfectly still as this hobo began the long, curiously detailed task of bathing himself in a sink. My feet and legs went numb and still I made not a sound as I fought with my own inner demons over whether or not I should keep watching through the crack in the door knowing full well that if I kept watching it was likely I was going to have to endure seeing him plumb the depths of his own personal Hades but if I turned away the moment I looked up again his squirrely hobo eye would be pressed to the crack in the door staring at me as mysterious banjo music filled the entire room. Long after my legs felt as though they’d atrophied to meaty slabs of uselessness, the hobo finally finished his business and, blessedly, took the high road by deciding today was not the day to wash his ass or crotch. He proceeded to dress himself again and shamble out of the restroom without a word. After massaging the blood back into my limbs and lamenting the toilet seat shaped tattoo that would surely be marring my ass for the next several days, I waited a few minutes and then left as well. Looking back on it all I feel I've come out wiser as a person, but the cost to my own innocence was high.  So very high.