5 Crazy Things Before Breakfast

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I've been trying to walk to a farther subway stop each morning so as to get a teeny, tiny bit of exercise. It also requires me to have more exposure to Philadelphia, which means I have the opportunity to witness numerous bizarre acts in 20 minutes or less. Today, I ran into the same homeless crazy lady who I saw on the train Monday night. She gestures and hoots and tugs at the waistband of her jogging pants. And another woman, seemingly sane, who was wearing a short blond wig on top of a long black wig. Like, just placed on top. I wish I could find a picture for you.Then, a guy wearing headphones, and gesturing as if conducting an orchestra. More likely a theater person vs. crazy. And two toothless elderly people sitting on a front stoop in their pajamas smoking cigarettes and saying hi to everyone who passed. Even the city birds are a little off--the one I passed near the fire station was trilling in a way that sounded just like a fire truck.

While I was in the waiting room for my doctor's appointment, I sat by a grandma and grandpa and their seven year old grand kid (I know this because they told someone else in the room how old he was). He had a handheld computer game and was playing some kind of word association thing where he had to fill in the missing letters to spell the rest of the quote. He said, "Life is like a bowl of...what?"

The grandpa said, "Cherries."

The kid filled in some letters and then said, "No, the answer is gas."

The grandma said, "Life is like a bowl of gas? That doesn't make any sense."

"It's supposed to be cherries," said the grandpa.

Grandma said,"What kind of gas? Gasoline?"

The kid said, "No, like farts." I laughed.

The grandpa scolded the kid,"That is not a nice thing to say. You don't talk about things like that."

The grandma turned to me and said, "Kids say the darndest things, huh?" But really, life sometimes is like a bowl of farts.

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