Subway Tales, Vol. 2

The New York Subway is a dangerous place.

If no one’s stabbing you with a knife or an HIV infected syringe, pushing you onto the high voltage tracks or lighting you on fire, chances are they’re planting a bomb in your anus. A terrorist bomb with little HIV infected syringes in it.

But even greater than the really, really good chance of dying a painful death on the subway is the chance of smelling something awful on the subway.

I don’t mean spoiled-milk awful. I mean festering-bum-scrotum-sprayed-by-a-skunk-with-a-stomach-virus-that-died-in-a-urinal-in-the-men’s-room-at-a-gas-station-outside-Topeka awful. The chances of smelling this smell are better than good. In fact it’s downright bound to happen.

And to me, smelling something even close to that is worse than dying by butt bomb.


The Subway Danger Canal.

If you doubt how bad the subway can smell, let me suggest you visit Union Square station. At the far east corner of the stop, right outside the entrance between the attendant booth and the escalator, is the worst bum-ass stench you will ever smell. And it’s there year round. It gets even more pungent during the humid, moist summer months. Go there, take a whiff, and if you still don’t think it’s that bad, then please, tell science how you are a miracle and live without a nasal cavity.


Steve Gutenberg says, "You're right Cosby! Before I smelled
Union Square I had a promising film career. Now look at me!"

So because of the inevitability of coming across such horrid stench, I am shocked by some people’s audaciousness to ignore the danger of stink on the subway.

What I mean is that I am so afraid that I might smell something awful, I take every precaution to not escalate the experience. I rarely open my mouth on the subway, much less breathe. And I would never, ever eat or drink on the subway.

Let’s say I’m feeling risky so I take a latte onto the subway and am about to take a sip when, at that moment, I get a whiff of a urine-soaked homeless man. There would be projectile vomiting. Weeping. Gnashing of teeth. Apocalypse. And that was just a latte. Think what would happen if I were about to bite into an egg salad sandwich. Yeah, not pretty.

That’s why I have to hand it to the guy who I saw on the subway recently. I got on the subway and sat down, just as this guy was opening a liter container of beef stew. Yes. This guy didn’t think twice about digging into beef stew on the subway.


Campbell's Chunky Soup. Now BUM JUICIER!

I mean the balls on this guy. The sheer, molten steel BALLS of this guy thinking he could keep down a liter of boiled potatoes and beef shank if he were to smell a drunk hooker’s puke all of a sudden.

So here’s to you, Beef Stew Gambler. You not only play Russian roulette with your stomach, you feel free to make the entire subway car smell like your disgusting dinner. Which ups the ante, because I nearly puked because of the smell of your stew, which may have set off a chain reaction with you, unless of course your constitution really is as leaded as you would like us to believe.


Translation: Real American Happy Subway vs Beef Stew Action Time!