At this point, I was living in the East Village. On Sunday mornings, the sidewalks were littered with stories from the night before. A purple feather boa wet from rain. A lone red sock. Condoms in all forms-used, unused, boxed, wrapped, normal, giant, lubed. Underwear. Wine bottles. An acrylic nail painted blue. A wig. And I’d make up stories to go along with each item, as I discovered them. This Tuesday morning, I was on my way to work at the Agency, which was housed in the Gray Bar Building in Grand Central Station.

I got my usual order at the bodea–a hot black coffee and bacon, egg and cheese (BEC) and carried it greasy in a brown paper bag as I weaved from Second Avenue to Saint Marks Place. Saint Marks Place echoes with the ghosts of musical icons from the eighties. Madonna was here for her movie, “Desperately Seeking Susan.” Lou Reed sang about it. As I walked down Saint Marks Place to head to Union Square, a man popped out right in front of me on the sidewalk. The back of his head with his wild, scraggy hair, his squishy, square back were merely feet away from me, outside the tattoo parlor with the blinking purple sign. It all happened so fast. He promptly pulled down his pants. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be mooned by a strange man before nine in the morning. But then. Then. He proceeded to take his hands, spread his butt cheeks wide and take a shit right in front of me, right on the sidewalk. I was so disgusted, I started running up Third Avenue but also laughing as I ran. And then I was running for my life, terrified, mortified and laughing and crying and cackling, all at once. Which really is a moment that describes perfectly what it’s like to be a New Yorker.

Once in the subway station in Union Square, cops were all over the place and people around the station were shaken up. I asked a woman dressed as a nurse what happened. Someone on the R train had sexually abused a passenger. The criminal was on the loose. The only thing is, the passenger was a corpse.

It was then that I realized it: Every day in New York City, no matter what you have planned, you will come home at the end of the day with a good story.