Madame Refuse

Seen on the Purple Line to Linden at about 8:45 a.m.

She huddles there, buried beneath piles of her beloved garbage. She inhales the manufactured smell of the plastic grocery bags. The recent spike in temperature has increased the pungency of the rotting food inside them, creating a fragrance that perfectly juxtaposes the repulsive and the intoxicating.

“I should bottle this,” she thinks. “I should bottle this and sell it. ‘Madame Refuse’s Eau des Ordures: One Man’s Trash is Another Man’s Treasure.’ I’d be rich!”

But if she were rich, she couldn’t live this way. She would be excised from the filth, and no amount of fur coats or down blankets could make her as warm or as happy. Besides, she is a jealous woman. Right now this particular scent is hers and hers alone. Why should she share it with an unappreciative public? Each day they scoff at her; they sit as far away from her as they possibly can. She never deigns to speak to them, or even look at them. She burrows her head deeper into her decaying haven, and her back lumps into a posture that insists: “one man’s trash…” 

Yep. Bag lady on the train today. 

I am getting very excited because Leta is coming to visit ON THURSDAY! Just a few days until we can have our super awkward, super complimentary discussions IN PERSON. I have missed her indeed.