Monday, May 10, 2010

Stranger than Fiction

My husband and I decided to end Mother's Day by going downtown Waikiki to Buffalo Wild Wings. We love to sit in there, drink a beer, have a snack, and play trivia. We always have a great time when we play and we can get very competitive. Unfortunately, I rarely beat him. He's a smart guy and seems to have a lot of useless information bumping around in his head. I feel like I've accomplished something when I beat him once out of a three game session.
The strange part of our evening came as we were walking the few blocks back to the parking garage from the restaurant.
It was still daylight and was a very nice evening. There are always lots of people around, but it wasn't uncomfortably crowded. As we passed a pair of benches on the sidewalk I noticed an older woman kneeling between the two benches. I recognized this woman from when we walked down the sidewalk earlier going to the restaurant. She stood out because she had on a pair of red running shorts and a red bikini top. I mentioned this is an older woman and my thought was she probably should put a shirt on.
So, the kneeling between the two benches made me curious. What is she doing? Praying? I couldn't see her legs and she had her head down. In a second, she stood up, and I could see her bare hiney. She reached down and pulled up her shorts. I know my mouth fell open. I realized at that moment she hadn't been kneeling, but squatting so she could urinate on the public sidewalk! We weren't the only ones that did a double take.
As we approached the corner and waited for the light to change so we could cross the street, I kept looking back to see what she was doing. She had a bag sitting on the bench, reached in and took out a few napkins and wiped her legs. I thought I might vomit right there. She cleaned herself and did it well. She had her back to the street and wiped her WHOLE leg even up under the leg of her shorts. It was disturbing.
My husband, being the world traveler he is, said to me "I've seen people do that squat in public before, but never in the United States"
Hawaii is a beautiful place, but it's poor. There is a huge homeless problem here. You can't pass a public park without seeing the mini tent cities all over the place. They really try to keep these people out of Waikiki and the tourist areas, but don't always succeed. I guess if you're going to be homeless, do it in Hawaii. You won't freeze to death and there are tons of fruit trees and lots of trash cans with leftovers downtown.
For your enjoyment, a couple of photos:

4 comments:

Mindee@ourfrontdoor said...

Beyond gross, but yes - when I was in India I saw well dressed business men peeing on the side of city streets so it is done other places.

Rich and I actually discussed the possibility of living as homeless people in Hawaii. Given the housing prices there it might be the only way we could live there!

Renee said...

Ewwww...kudos to you for holding down your dinner!

Paula said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ordinary Mom said...

WOW! I cant imagine.

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