Who Got Da Funk?

There are two different bus stops I use to catch the Number 10 DATA bus into work. One just has a bench and it out in the open on the sidewalk, the other is covered and can offer shelter from the wind and rain.




Recently it was pouring out so I got a ride to the stop that was covered.

I was standing there just looking at the sheets of rain coming down, sideways at times, when I looked down and spotted something. Always in the habit of carrying my camera around I snapped a picture of it. I wasn't sure what it was but upon closer inspection I deducted it was exactly what I thought it was: poop.

Clearly, someone had to go so bad that they squatted on the edge of the bench and took a dump. Looks like they use a combo of a stick and sliding off the edge to wipe themselves.

I still had a good ten minutes before the bus came and now all I could smell was the nasty stench of human poo.

Then I looked down behind me and saw some on the sidewalk where I was standing.

"Fuck!" I said and started noticing it everywhere.

I took a quick look at my shoes and was quickly relieved to find that I hadn't stepped in it. The thought of shitting on a bus with poo wafting up my face made me gag.

And cough.

God it stunk.

Then I walked out into the rain and rubbed my shoes in the swollen gutter just in case; I had a vision of sitting at my desk at work smelling nothing but this smell all day.

Ugh.

I was reminded of the time I worked as a bellman at Washington Duke Inn, a hotel right across from Duke's West Campus and just down the road from Duke Hospital. These two facts are important to note because it meant that two kinds of people stayed at the hotel - Duke douchebags and rich people in need of care at the hospital.

One fateful day I was unloading leather bags out of a high-priced sports car when I saw an elderly man approaching me. He sported a grimace on his face as he walked my way. I lifted a bag out of the trunk and turned to put it on the luggage cart.

He walked between me and the car.

I turned around to find a shit patty sitting right in front of me.

"Where'd the fu..?" I was about to drop the F-bomb in front of some guest.

In a matter of seconds you could smell the diarrhea.

"Damn!" I said.

I told the guest to hold on so that I could go get a maintenance man to clear it up.

As I walked toward the double doors to enter the hotel I notice two more poo patties on my way.

"Motherfucker," I said under my breath.

And then I opened the double doors...

And saw one in the doorway and then two more in the lobby. Apparently he got the elevator as well.

Needless to say, I spent the rest of the day inhaling disinfectant fumes and the unbearable essence of poo.

Back the the bus stop.

So later that day on my walk to the bus stop I got caught in a downpour and had to run the last five minutes to the bus depot arriving soak to the bone. It was as if I just jumped into the shower with all my clothes on and jumped back out.

My shoes squished as I sat down on the bus.

The rain must have unleashed all that lives in my shoes because ever since then all I can smell is the funk.

The shoe funk.

Damn.