An Unexpected Holiday Miracle
I was living in New York City in December 2008, and I could not have been in less of a holiday spirit.
I was working way too many jobs to be as broke as my bank account told me I was. My latest romantic interlude had fizzled when I figured out that the super sweet and shy man I was dating was actually a douchnozzle stepping out on his live-in girlfriend (the city is big, but social media is small). The economy had done a nose dive and taken the spirit of the city with it; the gruff but welcoming city I had moved to in 2006 was now replaced with an air of bitterness and desperation. Everyone seemed so angry. I found myself vacillating between anger and devastation as the holiday season rolled around. At one point, I saw a young woman with such a dark expression on her face in the reflection of a window at Macy’s that I turned to make sure she wasn’t dangerous, only to realize I had been looking at myself. I wanted more than anything to recapture the excitement and joy that I had felt around the holiday season when I was younger, but nothing I did seemed to solve my holiday blues. After a dinner in Brooklyn with a similarly stressed friend, I decided to take a detour to the Target at the Atlantic Station before heading back to Harlem and get some Christmas shopping done. Buying gifts for others had always put me in a great mood, and I needed a major injection of positivity at that point.
I wandered the aisles picking up small gifts for friends and family, feeling my spirit lifting, only to have it come crashing back down when my card was declined at the checkout. This is one of the major drawbacks of being a freelancer - if your companies don’t pay on time, you can end up looking like an asshole in front of a cashier at Target as you silently freak out over your finances. It was good that I had used cash at dinner. It was not so good that I only had $10 cash left to my name until my next paycheck, whenever the hell that decided to arrive.
I left my non-purchases at the counter and slunk out of the store, my slink becoming a stomp as I descended into the bustling station to make my way back to the 2. As negativity began to once again swirl up inside of me, my pace quickened until I was barreling through the station, barely missing other angry and stressed out shoppers and commuters. Luckily, I became aware of the rat who was right in front of me as I stormed through the gate. Wait. That wasn’t a rat. What the…?
I looked down and then jumped back with a panicked “OHMYGOD”, gawking at the sight on the ground right in front of me. There, lying in the middle of the station floor, was a Santa hat with a gigantic shit poking out of it. A gigantic human shit. I looked around as though the culprit would still be around, waiting to see who discovered their homemade stink bomb, but all I saw were the shocked and disgusted faces of everyone else who had heard me yelp and saw what had caused my reaction. We all stood, frozen, staring at this hat full of crap, as though it was magically going to become Mr. Hanky the Christmas Poo and teach us the meaning of the season. It didn’t, of course. It just lay there, defiantly, daring us to continue our nights untraumatized. And so we stood. And we stared.
The more I looked at this hat and its contents, the more ridiculous the situation at hand became. Someone had gotten so angry at the holidays that they had taken the time to squat over a Santa hat and deposit their own personal Yule Log of fuck you. A Fuck Yule Log, if you will. And they most certainly had. How did they even manage this? Did they purchase a Santa hat at Target with the mission to poop in it and deposit their deposit in the middle of a busy station? Did they do it at home and then carry it on the subway with the intention to place it in the middle of a busy station? The mental image of someone angrily holding a Santa hat full of their own feces as they sat on the downtown train, glaring at happy tourists and train breakdancers, was what pushed me over my edge.
The laughter started deep in my stomach, which had been in knots for weeks, and traveled through my chest, which had been host to shooting pains and tension that I’d created through a stress partnership between my stomach and tight shoulders, which were now beginning to shake. Peals of laughter caused my face to break from its recent glower into a huge grin, and I found myself having the best laugh I had experienced in ages in the middle of the busiest subway station in Brooklyn, during the most stressful time of the year, caused by a holiday hat full of poo.
I looked around and realized that I wasn’t alone. Everyone who was witness to this was laughing, some grinning at friends and family, some turning to total strangers and cracking a joke. No matter what state of mind we were all in prior to this, we were all bonded by our amusement at this absurdity. For a moment, the terrible economy didn’t matter. The looming high rent due so shortly after a holiday didn’t matter. All that mattered was the odd joy we were taking from this insane discovery. It really was one of the most “New York” moments I ever experienced as a resident. As we all went to our respective trains, we took the time to wish each other a happy holiday. People of all races and religions smiled and shook hands, then traveled on their way with a lighter step and a better mood.
All because of a giant shit in a Santa hat. I don’t know if I’ll ever get over how something so gross and potentially catastrophic made the night of so many merry. Sometimes the light gets in, but you certainly can’t always predict the source of said light. Sometimes it’s an act of kindness, sometimes it’s a stroke of luck when the chips are down, sometimes it’s last night’s digested dinner nestled into a red velour hat. I’ll tell you one thing; that poop in a hat was the Clarence of poops in hats, and it certainly earned its wings that cold December evening.
As we usher in another emotionally draining and stressful holiday season, may your days be merry and bright, may you find moments of humor and joy in unexpected places, and may you always be aware of what’s on the ground in front of you while you’re walking. Happy Holidays.
