Lasagna

My blog is just starting to be about disturbing things I've seen. This is going to have to change.

Have you ever had a piece of lasagna? I'm sure you have. I love it. I don't have it enough, but it's on my top three foods (the others being pepperoni pizza and McDonald's french fries). I want you to picture cutting yourself a piece of lasagna now. You're placing it on your plate. You see the cheese and the sauce, all red and white, running out of the layers of pasta. Can you picture it in your head? Good. Hold it there, you're going to need it later.

When I come home from work, and get off the Staten Island train, I am faced with two options on how to travel home. One is the more traditional way, using streets and sidewalks and the like. This gets me home in about ten minutes, at a leisurely, end of the day, walk. The other is a shortcut, a weed and grass infested dirt plain, that runs parallel to the train, and behind some stores on Annadale Road. Taking this path shaves two minutes off my travel time, though I do have to walk on a small dirt path between weedy overgrowth. Any type of rain or anything, and this path is no good. In the summer, it's almost unwalkable anyway, as the dirt path is really just two feet wide or so, and the weeds completely over take it.
Also, when leaving the train and starting along this shortcut, you first have to pass the back of a deli and a nail salon, where foul fumes mingle with rotting garbage, and you have to dodge the old, stale bagels that are underfoot. I'm constantly surprised by the lack of vermin, though there are often pigeons.

Two days ago, on Tuesday, I was walking home along this path, as I do when the weather's nice enough. Halfway along, directly underfoot, I see the body of a rat. This rat had no head, it was torn clean off. Truth be told, it was missing the front part of it's torso too.

When I was a kid, in elementary school, they brought in animals to show us, and teach us about nature, I guess. I'm pretty sure it was the Staten Island Zoo that did it, though I don't really remember. But they had all sorts of cool animals they brought into the class, a big constrictor, which the zookeeper took around and let us touch, and a bird of prey, I want to say an eagle. He was in a big glass cage, like a super aquarium.
Well, while that bird was there, they decided to feed him, to show us all what these animals looked like eating in the wild. So they threw a mouse in the cage. And this bird decimated it. Just killed it, and started pulling it apart. Why they thought this was something kids should see is really beyond me. But I remember thinking, as a kid, as this bird of prey pulled muscle and sinew and blood and guts from this mouse was this: Lasagna. It looks just like lasagna.

Of course, I thought the same thing Tuesday, when faced with this mauled rat. To say I was horrified would be an understatement. I can't handle rodents really at all, and this...well, it was just terrible. I actually dithered there for thirty seconds or so, until I made myself jump over it, and not look back. In fact, I haven't even gone back there the last few days, as I don't want to see it's decomposing corpse, or worse, see more of it gone. It'll rain most of the week now, so maybe on Monday it'll be washed away. Or maybe on Monday, I'll feel the need to stretch my legs and continue taking that longer walk.

This blog is starting to be about disturbing things I've seen. This is going to have to change.

Just not yet.

You know what I hate?

You know what I hate? Really, really hate with a burning passion? Hand cart luggage. You know, those suitcases that people have on wheels, and drag them around by a handle? Somehow, over the past couple of years, these things have become prevalent, not only among travelers in airports, but amongst commuters travelling in the city. I know where this comes from, actually, as a few years ago there was a fairly big news report on how back packs were bad for your kids, that they led to back problems, and these were marketed as an alternative. From the kids they went up to the parents, who use them instead of backpacks, shoulder bags, or briefcases. I can’t wait until a study in five or ten years reveal how bad these things are for your shoulder.

You know why I hate them? Well there’s not just one reason. Firstly, and primarily, they take up two people’s spaces in a crowd, because people drag their belongings behind them, instead of carrying them like an adult who’s not crippled. Secondly, as a corollary, in a crowd, because they’re so low, you can’t tell they’re there, so you see what you think is an empty space, attempt to move towards it , or get angry at those in front of you who do (and you know how anger on commutes builds and builds, leading to explosions on someone over the course of your week). Also, people have no idea what’s going on behind them, so these things are usually directly in your way as you attempt to walk like a normal human being. Also, it just says something about those people who use them (and if you do, I’m sorry, this is the impression I have of you) , that these people are completely self-absorbed, because they don’t realize what an unbelievable hassle these things are.

Now, I know backpacks are sometimes no great shakes either, but at least you can see them coming, and do something to get yourself out of the way, if a 10th grader with fifty books swings that thing in your face while you’re sitting on the subway.

So you know what I do when I see people with these fucking things? I kick them. Or step on the backs of them. Not hard, not to break anything inside of them, just to maybe turn them over, or cause them to skip, something to break up the rhythm of the person dragging their personal belongings behind them to save all that insane stress on their back or shoulders, and let them know, if just for a second, the annoyance I deal with every day.

Man, I hate those fuckers.

I'm back, baby!