You left a can with some beer still in it???!!!

Jan, oddly, I find it difficult to drink beer lying down. So when I go to bed I'll occasionally abandon a beer. Big mistake.

Bleech.

When I was a kid I was drinking a can of coke in church, in an old building in Brisbane. I took a sip and a frickin exoskeleton hit my lips - a goddamned massive Brisbane cockroach had crawled into my can. I really had to hold myself back from screaming in church, but I couldn't help the retching.

ewwwwwww!! I had to help a coworker get to the infirmary really fast once - he took a sip out of his drink can at lunch and a yellow jacket had crawled in. He took in the creature with a big swig & it stung him. He was really allergic. Pretty scary.

I don't think I can get that roach thing outta my head now, goo!

Chewie, there's a bar in NYC called the Mars Bar that I've gotten loaded in a few times. It is by a wide margin the sleaziest dive I've ever been in, which is saying something. I've heard stories of people getting up to take a leak, coming back and finding a cockroach doing the backstroke in it.

It's kind of a wonder that the gentrification of the east Village has left that place still standing.

At a party I once saw a friend mistakenly take a swig from a can that had been used by others as an ashtray. It was gross to watch. I bet it was even grosser for her.

I'm pretty sure everybody where I grew up knew somebody who dipped, and who eventually made the inevitable spit-can mixup.

Ewwwwwww. EEEEWWWWWWWwww. totally, completely squicked out.

I've seen the ashtray-can mix up happen, hell, I think I may have done it at least once. Fortunately I'm no longer around smokers.

When I was in New York, my boss also had a coffee delivered from the place on the first floor that was the standard styro cup with a plastic cup and triangular opening. Through which she felt a tickle. Yep, a living, swimming cockroach, in hot coffee.* She didn't order from downstairs for a long time after that (the rest of us kept doing it because, well, it was either that or a machine).

Now, should I mention the road trip -- beer bottle risk? Or is it obvious?

* Mind you that roach was nothing to the one that was trying to crawl out of my tin ceiling on the upper upper west side this one time. Crawfish proportions, I'm telling you.

the upper upper west side

The realtor euphemism for 'Harlem.'

The Mars Bar musta been living up to its name with some protein in every swig.

I thought Harlem was the epitome of gentrification these days?

A couple years ago my kids and I were having lunch at Bubba Gump's with a bunch of my friends and their kids. I look over and notice my three-year-old is chomping gum. How did he get gum? Underneath the table!

I thought Harlem was the epitome of gentrification these days?

It is, but they'll still say 'upper west side' so as not to scare the out-of-towners.

LoriFLA, a friend of mine found her 5-year-old chewing gum when they were walking down the street.

"Where did you get that?" she asked him, horrified.

"I found it on the pavement" he replied, "but it's alright because I washed it in a puddle first."

I just went to go get beer. There's about 10 fire trucks including a HazMat van out on 28th Street. Also, I think that the girl with the glasses at my corner store is dating the dwarf cashier from the Key Food. He was hanging out there schmoozing with her drinking a cup of Starbucks coffe that was almost as big as him. But good for them, they're both nice people.