Sometimes I hate the city I love

This morning, my walk to work was miserable. Buckets of rain were coming down. I had rolled my pants up before I left the house (I'm bringing pegged pants back, people) but had underestimated how bad it was and by the time I was rounding the corner in front of my workplace the front of my pants were soaked. On the sidewalk in front was a large pile of syringes along with a few crack pipes and used plastic lighters. Drug addicts suck.

My building has a security guard so I let him know on my way in. I told him that if he called the police they could give him the number for the Needlestick Hotline. Yes, such a thing exists. A hotline solely dedicated to syringes. Drug addicts suck. They suck so much.

The reason that I know about the hotline is because months earlier, over the summer, there had been a similar situation outside my apartment building. Except instead of just syringes dumped on the sidewalk, they were in an open shoebox. It wasn't really a shoe box, it was a box for a cell phone but it looked to be about the same size as a shoe box. Just overflowing with syringes.

I saw it on my way out of the apartment with my wife. I called the police as we walked to the store. They were the ones who told me about the Needlestick Hotline. The Needlestick Hotline was not in service over the weekend but their message gave me a city department to call. I called the city department. I was promptly put on hold and forgotten about. I called back and had a tense moment with the woman on the other line who instantly softened once the situation with the box had been made clear. She let me know that someone would be by in the next couple of hours to pick it up.

It was just sitting there and dogs could have run up and sniffed it or a kid could have run up and tried to touch the orange plastic caps. I resolved to get it off the street as soon as we got back from the store. As we came down from the top of the street on the return trip, there were two people hunched over the box. They were taking pictures with a very nice camera as their nice, new station wagon sat running at the curb. I had a strong urge to walk up and punch them in the mouth. They could hear the party that my upstairs neighbor was having for their six year old son. They could see that this horrible, filthy box was sitting on the sidewalk for anyone to stick themselves with and they decided that the best thing to do about it, the most sensible plan of action, was to fucking taking pictures! You assholes. People suck. They suck and they suck and sometimes I hate living in San Francisco.

I have seem homeless people stop beggging to answer their cell phones. I once saw a homeless man pushing a shopping cart full of God-knows-what (boxes full of syringes, apparently) with a Bluetooth headset on. I have seen people smoke crack, swing at each other with baseball bats, fight on the train. Of course, urine pools abound and the other day someone shit in one of those tunnels construction crews build when the sidewalk is closed. It hadn't been there in the morning but then, on my way home, human feces in the tunnel, which is even worse because it means someone felt free enough to do that IN BROAD DAYLIGHT! There is nothing worse than coming across someone using the street as a toilet. And to the homeless man who sleeps in front of Flax, I SHOULD NOT KNOW WHAT YOUR PENIS LOOKS LIKE!