There are only a few things that really, really bother me about Gone West. One is the cloudiness/darkness/early sunsets in winter. The other is the spitting. This is a perfectly nice, urbane city. It has a city center and tall buildings and homeless people and cultural events. It has real cement sidewalks, not dirt paths.
It also has spitters. This is utterly unacceptable. Has no one here heard of TUBERCULOSIS? SARS? THE COMMON COLD? Why why why are people spreading SPIT all around? It's disgusting. I thought we ended this practice round about the turn of the last century. Spittoons? Wasn't that what they were for? Little boxes to spit into so that disease did not run rampant?
Perfectly normal people do it, too. Today I was walking down the street behind a cute, well-dressed guy, kinda-sorta checking him out, if you want to know the truth, and suddenly he leaned over and SPIT in the middle of the sidewalk. I was revolted. I wanted to throw up. One day, a woman leaned out the door of the train when it stopped at a station and SPIT on the platform.
I have tried and failed to come up with a good reason for the spitting. I cannot think of one possible situation in which I would feel the need to spit in the middle of the sidewalk, short of someone poisoning me. It's simply not necessary. Human beings do not have a need to spit as a matter of routine. At least, I don't. I can foresee a situation in which I had a terrible hacking cough and was coughing up yellow or green stuff, but even then, I think I could make it to a trash can or the little dirt area around a tree. There are many trash cans and many trees-in-the-sidewalk here in Gone West. And still the spitting is constant! It's not like it's only sick people who are doing it!
I am tempted to throw up my hands in despair at the lack of civilization out here. It is the one true thing that makes me think that this place is still the Wild West. And yet it has the veneer of civilization in the form of concrete sidewalks. Honestly, that is the most disgusting part. I am far less disgusted by spitting into dirt paths. At least it gets mixed in. Here? I have to dodge circles of spit while walking in heels to work. It is positively nasty.
[Shudder]
It also has spitters. This is utterly unacceptable. Has no one here heard of TUBERCULOSIS? SARS? THE COMMON COLD? Why why why are people spreading SPIT all around? It's disgusting. I thought we ended this practice round about the turn of the last century. Spittoons? Wasn't that what they were for? Little boxes to spit into so that disease did not run rampant?
Perfectly normal people do it, too. Today I was walking down the street behind a cute, well-dressed guy, kinda-sorta checking him out, if you want to know the truth, and suddenly he leaned over and SPIT in the middle of the sidewalk. I was revolted. I wanted to throw up. One day, a woman leaned out the door of the train when it stopped at a station and SPIT on the platform.
I have tried and failed to come up with a good reason for the spitting. I cannot think of one possible situation in which I would feel the need to spit in the middle of the sidewalk, short of someone poisoning me. It's simply not necessary. Human beings do not have a need to spit as a matter of routine. At least, I don't. I can foresee a situation in which I had a terrible hacking cough and was coughing up yellow or green stuff, but even then, I think I could make it to a trash can or the little dirt area around a tree. There are many trash cans and many trees-in-the-sidewalk here in Gone West. And still the spitting is constant! It's not like it's only sick people who are doing it!
I am tempted to throw up my hands in despair at the lack of civilization out here. It is the one true thing that makes me think that this place is still the Wild West. And yet it has the veneer of civilization in the form of concrete sidewalks. Honestly, that is the most disgusting part. I am far less disgusted by spitting into dirt paths. At least it gets mixed in. Here? I have to dodge circles of spit while walking in heels to work. It is positively nasty.
[Shudder]
No comments:
Post a Comment