The Boston Crazies

It is inevitable that every major city has its crazies. Some of them are fun and amusing, like the guy in San Francisco who hides behind a bush and scares tourists, and some of them are just plain, well, crazy. Boston definitely has a lot of crazies, and since I ride public transportation (the crazies' Mecca) almost everyday, I get to see a lot of them. Because I see crazies all the time, I think I can safely say I know of the two craziest of crazies. One of them is an old woman who carries around an unlit cigarette wherever she goes. Originally when I met this woman, I thought she simply carried it around because she was going to smoke it as soon as she got off the train or maybe she was trying to quite and simply carrying the thing helped sooth her addiction. Just as I was thinking this, the woman put the cigarette to her lips and started taking discrete little bites of it. The woman was literally eating her cigarette! When I told my sister about this, she did not believe me until a couple of weeks later when she saw it too! The other craziest of crazies was seen by my sister while she was standing at a bus stop. It was a guy who went around picking up trash while talking to himself and making weird noises. Now you may be thinking that picking up trash and making weird noises is not too crazy, and it may actually help the environment. This guy, however, doesn't only pick up the trash, but he has to put it in his mouth and chew it before throwing it away. When he picks up bottles, he has to put it in his mouth before he throws it away. Gross!!!! Most crazies in Boston just talk out loud to themselves or to God or maybe some imaginary person. I was thinking the other day that maybe this behavior is not so crazy. Living in a large city surrounded by people, you may think that you are never alone, but really everyone builds a bubble of self-containment around them so that no one waves, smiles, looks you in the eye, or says hello to each other. Maybe all the crazies want is someone to listen to their complaints and thoughts, even if that person is themselves, God, or imaginary.