Out In Public

Recently, fellow writer Carolynn (in some circles we call her 2N’s) Pianta talked in a three part series about special “messages” on her blog.  Granted I’ve had similar “messages” throughout my life, but today I’m here to talk about three separate “events” over the course of this past week which are downright…odd.  Not oooooo, ghostly odd.  Or even freak out odd.  More like distasteful odd?

Because of what it involves, maybe it’s simply ridiculous or just weirdly coincidental.  Actually, if it weren’t for the fact of what it was about, I wouldn’t have even noticed.

This is likely considered in poor taste, but I was never one to dwell for long on things like that.  🙂

FIRST TIME:  In a too close to home incident, I caught someone urinating – out in public. In my head, I was like, ho boy, um, is that necessary?  Yeah, yeah, when you need to go…BUT.  I called up Blaine and said, “So, uh, I just saw someone [insert details].  I’m not sure what to make of it.”

He chuckled and said, “You know, men can do that.”

I said, “Ha ha, very funny.  But then again.  Not really.”

I mean, honestly?  I was all kinds of grossed out because it was, if you get my drift, “too close to home.”  I’m not inclined to want to encounter the remnants of THAT – no matter how much rain falls to distill it, disperse it or whatever.

SECOND TIME:  While out on my run, I entered Greenwood Cemetery to make my usual out and back loop.  I spoke to someone walking, and on my way out, they were ahead of me.  I was about one hundred feet from them when they suddenly veered off to the edge of the woods and what do they do?  Begin to relieve themselves in the doggone creek.  I immediately reversed course, killed some time doing an extra loop, and when I came back out, he was gone.

THIRD TIME:  Today I was on my way to meet a fellow author for lunch and what do I hear on the radio?  Evidently NYC is making public urination and drinking LEGAL.  Why?  Because the court system is overloaded with offenders and it’s clogging up the system for the more serious offenses.  I think that’s what I heard.  I came home and looked it up just to be sure and holy hell, it must be true because I found this, and this, and a whole host of other reads on this urgent gotta go topic.

They (the collective, the group, the other folks?) say three’s a charm.  Or, we all know the saying, it comes in threes.  There’s something about the number three which is, I guess, mystical?  And there, right there were three instances on my radar regarding public urination.  I can see this as being necessary when you’re stuck on the interstate in an ice storm for going on fifteen bazillion hours and no access to toilets.  But even many of those poor people tried to twaddle off to the woods to take care of business.

I am perplexed, make that STUMPED as to what the message is I’m supposed to get from this?  The strangeness of it, with only a couple days in between each “event,” of course brought it front and center.  However, if there is something there for me to discern, I’ll be darned if I know what it’s supposed to be, but hey, as a writer, I’ll have to figure out if there’s a way I can use this.  Maybe in a flash fiction story down the road.

Now, tell me this isn’t the strangest post you’ve read all day.