MTA bus driver caught peeing in public

My arm hurts. I think I have arthritis but these days I can’t even get a personal physician to evaluate me, to ask if I should be concerned. These pandemic days all doctor appointments are made as zoom or phone calls. Alex Jones’ website has a holocaust survivor claiming that the COVID pandemic is worst than living through Nazi era in Europe.

The ugly truth about my arthritis is how I discovered I have arthritis in my elbow. Exercising. It’s frustrating trying to be healthy by exercising on the treadmill, only to later realize I over did it with the dumbbell weights. Having overdone the dumbbells while walking on the treadmill, I had been expecting a little muscle soreness, but that usually decreases after a few weeks. This time was different. I haven’t found the motivation to restart my treadmill routine, without dumbbells, and try to get some cardio exercise in my regimen, so whenever I have an opportunity to walk to the grocery store, like so many people do with their pedometer fitness apps/devices, I walk instead of drive and call it a day.

Today I walked to the post office to pay a bill. It’s such a nice day. I decide to walk to the pet shop after that too to pick up some flea control chewables for my dog. The path I took to get there turned ugly real fast as I notice somebody up ahead urinating in public. Disgusting! I’m not the type of person to voice my opinions. I’m passive, compliant and quiet when outdoors. I wear my mask, keep six feet distance from others and not very sociable with strangers. Now that I’m hearing about Covid variants, I even wear motorcycle goggles to limit air flow into my eyes. It doesn’t help having a vivid imagination during Covid as I sometimes get carried away with scenarios of G-men trying to decrease the population by eliminating as many unfavorables by contaminating them with the virus. It’s actually the reason I always carry my phone in my hand with the camera app up and ready; I have this crazy idea that all uniformed law enforcement officers should be recorded as being out of uniform until I see them in hot pink regalia. I’ve also been glued to the trial against the Minneapolis four which started this week with the leader of the pack, Derek Chauvin but that’s a post for another day. In the interim (while no cops are in vicinity) I search for interesting subjects to shoot. The BitCam app allows for shooting all kinds of senseless pix because they’re black and white, very pixelated and take up little memory. Of course, the resolution sucks, but that just means that taking photos of people this way may not infringe on their privacy as recognition of them from the low resolutions, black and white photo would be near impossible.

I took a picture of the disgusting animal peeing against the bus and he notices that I photographed him and asks me why I did it. Talk about multi-tasking. I usually focus on aim when peeing. So I tell him. “I don’t like people urinating out in public especially when I’m walking here.” He calls me a weirdo and I fire back one of my own choice words (which I should probably put myself in check for because it not only shows my age, it may be interpreted as politically incorrect.) He says next time I do it he’ll break my phone and I tell him to try it, but by then I’m already past him and gradually increasing my distance from him. Turns out the disgusting animal was the MTA driver of the bus, and I really didn’t expect anything to escalate beyond the exchange of words. The poor guy probably got stressed that I might report him to his boss for urinating in public with the pictures I had taken. I know I would. The guy was tattooed, dark skinned and appeared to be the poster boy for ex-cons, fresh out of prison trying to get back on the straight and narrow. Why I would talk to a guy like that as if I was ready to duke it out with him is beyond me. Yet another example of why I can’t trust myself to be out and about socializing with folks in public. I can’t control my speech. It’s this kind of behavior that makes me wonder about Tourette’s.

When all is said and done, the little bit of socializing we had was more than I get from normal people encountered outdoors, like attractive women I might be impelled to flirt with or just say hi. So the guy seemed like a cool dude for not trying to confront me violently, and I enjoyed our little interaction. I could give a shit really if somebody is urinating on the street. Only a week ago, hundreds of homeless people sleeping in tents in the park nearby were all cleared out as city officials claimed that thousands of dollars of repair needed to be made and the homeless people would only be in the way. A little urine here and there doesn’t really make an impact on the germs around the streets where I live. Maybe I was right to give the bus driver a heads up about his disgusting manner, but then I realized that bus drivers must have a difficult time finding places to pee. Nothing is open like before. I remember, back in the day, while riding the bus myself, having to wait for a bus driver while he stopped his vehicle next to a donut shop or something just to relieve himself in the bathroom.

This little incident has helped to open my eyes about using the camera on people. Peeps don’t like that kind of thing. Even though I know the resolution of my pix are too vague to identify anybody and hence safe to avoid legalities, the damn sound effects on the camera app gives it away. The developers of the app should consider including an option to remove the sound effect, at the very least for people who might be willing to pay a premium for the app. Perhaps it’s just time to cool it a bit with the photographing of blasé subject matter. By now I think I have a fully grasp on the bells and whistles of the app and how it works so that I can pull it up on a moment’s notice. Now if I could only find something to keep my hands busy while I try to ignore my camera during my walks around town.