Puke.
"A professionally dressed woman, wearing a taupe pencil skirt and floral cardigan, makeup done fastidiously, probably 27, smiled politely to me as I boarded the C train. And then vomited, thick and yellow, on the floor. And then started laughing maniacally, for the rest of the ride, or at least until the unthanked professionals of the Jay Street Metrotech stop evacuated the car."
Poop!
"As I was getting out of the subway station, a grown man pulled down his pants and took a dump making one of those "WAZZUPPP" faces. He was so high off the ground you could hear the 'plop plop'."
More Poop!
"So, this one time, my boyfriend at the time and I were taking the G train home after dinner — horror story already, I know — and the train was totally packed. We realized the next train car was pretty empty, and, despite the red flag of the dreaded SOLE EMPTY TRAIN CAR, we decided to take a chance.
We were totally edgy and switched train cars on a moving train, and in between cars on I almost slid to my doom on — you guessed it — human poop. Though almost dying was terrifying enough, the worst of it came as we entered the next car, and discovered the poop culprit: a drunk old man doused in whiskey who had actually shit his pants (it slid down his leg or something, I guess?!), sitting in front of a pile of his own poo. We kept watching people slide in horror in the same fashion into the train car for the duration of the ride, so at least there was some solidarity to be found."
So Much Poop!
"I definitely have seen a giant log of human poop on a subway at least twice. Each time I gasped."
Teenagers.
Teenagers Who Are Willing to Die.
"One Saturday morning last year I watched a group of teens daring each other to lick one of the poles in the car from top to bottom. Sure enough, after collecting about $5 from his friends, one young lad got down and cleaned that greasy sucker from top to bottom."
Up-Close Dick.
"I was half asleep one morning on the train a few years ago and when I opened my eyes there was def a gross old man standing in front of me with his fly fully unzipped and no underwear."
Plain Old Dick.
"Penis."
Far Away Dick.
"The worst i've ever seen is a guy masturbating on the subway platform about 15 feet away, believe it was the G train."
Le Dick Français.
"I once took a trip to Paris with an old roommate and her sweet but quite conservative mother. Within two stops on the Metro an old man had dropped trow and exposed some Parisian peen; said roommate's mom squealed, blushed and bravely pushed him off the train at the next stop.
We proceeded to get off the train two or three stops down the line, and while we walked down the platform an old lady ran up behind us and kicked the poor mom in the butt like she was punting a football.
We then got back on the train, took it back to Gare du Nord and got the Eurostar right back to London."
Vagina.
"A tall, large female with crazy hair got on the train when I was in high school. She turned to an unsuspecting man and asked, 'Can you give me a dollar so I can get some panties?' I don't know what his response was, but next thing we knew she was pulling down her pants to show him her lack of panties as we turned our heads in horror missing the worst of it."
Boobs.
"About five years ago I got on the 1 train at 72nd. Across from me sat a morbidly obese woman wearing a maroon sweatsuit. First she put her arms inside the sweatshirt and started fondling her breasts. Then she took off her sweatshirt, revealing too pendulous udders, which she continued to knead. Then she hooked her fingers inside the band of her sweatpants, at which point the put-upon-looking modern Orthodox man sitting next to her screamed, 'No! Stop!'
The woman looked like she had been slapped. She put her shirt back on and sat like an angel for the rest of the ride."
Suspiciously Motionless Human.
"I once saw a dead guy on the green line on the DC Metro. On the train. He was on the opposite end of the car. It smelled HORRIBLE. And a woman bugged him and said the dude was dead."
Peculiar Panhandling.
"A legless beggar who would work the 1 train on a skateboard."
Really, Really Disturbing Panhandling.
"It's more psychologically than physically twisted but there's a guy on the 2/3 who gives an angry, harrowing speech about how his granddaughter was killed by a stray bullet the previous day and he needs money to buy her flowers for a funeral in the Bronx. He starts getting in people's faces about how black men are the number one killers of black people and gets increasingly outraged the more time passes without people giving him money. I've seen him do the same speech probably five times, same details each time (granddaughter killed previous day/weekend, needs money for funeral happening shortly in the Bronx)."
People Speaking German.
"A man with a demon-voice muttering in German."
Romantic Violence. Violent Romance.
"Last week, I saw a couple engage in a vicious screaming fight on the L train (sample dialogue: 'You'll never stop working at that bodega,' 'No, but you'll mooch off your parents forever!').
At one point things turned physical and they started hitting each other. Only a minute after this happened, they stood frozen and looked into each other's eyes in deep silence. The guy then cooed Pootie Tang's famous words, 'sa da tay?' She repeated them back to him and they started making out so hard they fell off the train at the next stop. Everyone was relieved."
Soul-Rattling Insults.
"While riding the train in Chicago, an old man asked if I was 'the kid from Home Alone.' I've never been so offended in my life."
Existentially Crushing Symbols.
"I once saw a rat eating another rat on the tracks."
