Let's Hope Nutter isn't a Crackhead

Yesterday I walked into the bathroom in Suburban Station and I could hear someone talking inside a stall.

Voice: “I just need some peace and quiet and a bathroom”
Me (inside my head): “Please don’t let this woman be talking to me”
Voice: “Just count to 10 and relax”
Me (inside my head): “What in the hell is this crazy person talking about”
Voice: “Don’t you be passing judgment on me, you could be in my situation tomorrow”
Me (inside my head): “Dear lord, this crazy woman is reading my mind…pee faster!”

A hasty hand wash and dry later (yes, I was traumatized by the lack of proper sanitizing resources, but at least there wasn’t a door to touch on the way out) I was out the door to tell my husband. He confirmed there was also a crazy dude in the men’s room. May I ask just one question? (Ok, maybe it’s the start of several probing questions, but who’s counting.) When was the last time you went into Penn Station and heard someone screaming in the stall? Ummm, in my experience, never. Perhaps this is yet another example of why we’ll never be a tourist destination like NYC.

At a minimum it might explain why Philadelphia gets such a bad rap. It has come to my attention that I am hopelessly desensitized. This is especially evident when we have someone visit from out of town. There are several things they notice, in no particular order:
1. It’s dirty
2. Every corner yields a new homeless individual begging for money
3. Our nightly news is horrific to watch (lots of stuff catches fire and people get shot…daily)

Having grown up in the suburbs I had a fairly low radar for dangerous situations. While most parents were giving their kids sound advice like, "Study hard" or "Don't drink too much", my father's advice was "Listen, if you get mugged just give them what they want, it's not worth dying over" and "If someone tries to pull you into a car, die on the street before you let that happen because death will be better than what they're going to do to you." If he was trying to scare me, it worked.

A weird thing happens when you live in the bad lands, you start to notice things. Which corners are dark, alleys that are poorly lit, which way home has foot traffic, the people around you, etc. You also start acting goofy (which I still do and my husband finds amusing) like pulling all personal identification out of your wallet and purse, hiding it in your pockets so if they do mug you, at least they don't know where you live. Separating your keys from your address so they can’t come find you later. Similar in concept to the "mugger money" we used to carry when we would go out drinking in college. Keep $10 bucks in your pocket and the other $40 in your bra. They leave happy with $10 and you have a better cleavage.

I eventually moved into Center City where you don’t have to worry so much about getting jumped on the street for 75 cents. Over the last 14 years I’ve watched it get better and now progressively worse. Thankfully today marks the end of John Street’s eight year tenure as mayor. What a bum. Under his watchful eye we became the city with the highest murder rate. We’re visibly dirtier than we were 8 years ago. He was a target of an FBI investigation and he gave his idiot brother a few million and a job he clearly couldn’t handle.

And to think we made fun of DC for their crackhead mayor, Marion Barry.

I hope this guy Nutter is a good guy. He seems normal and so does his family. He also appears legitimately pissed off about the state of affairs. I feel bad for him, he really has his work cut out for him here.

Good luck man, you’re gonna need it.

Ps – Today my shiny pretty lady got the boot. Poor Alycia. Bye-bye shiny pretty lady.

picture credit: cnn.com