unsettling things at 6am

I was rounding the corner to drop off my trash before work when a man in a bright blue windbreaker suit stopped me in my tracks. He was standing or leaning against the outside of the outermost dumpster, the one I was heading for. I could tell it was a man even though his head and left arm were buried deep inside the container, the lid perched on his right shoulder.

Immediately, the whole headless-man-in-the-park thing from last year flashed through my head. Was this another victim of suburban violence?? Was he still alive? Should I run into the CTA and shout for assistance? I froze, trying to decide what to do.

Then the dumpster lid bobbed.

He was alive. Not a dismembered body, then.

But what on earth was he doing? Maybe he lost something? I swallowed hard and steeled my nerves -- I couldn't miss my bus, after all. And I had to get rid of my heavy, smelly trash bag.

He heard me as I approached and poked his head out of the dumpster. He was a middle-aged white guy, maybe only an inch or two taller than me, with wispy puffs of dark hair in a weird balding pattern. He looked at me, startled, his cheeks disturbingly stuffed full of something. It was clear that he had been eating from out of the dumpster. He held the lid aloft for me to toss in my trash bag. I thanked him and quickly ran to the train stop.

Something about it/him was deeply weird and a little sad. I peeked out at him from behind the safet of the billboards on the train platform. Was that a hint of mental instability in his eyes, in his movements? Or was he embarrassed at being caught in such a peculiar and vulnerable position? Should I have offered him my lunch? He rooted through the dumpster for a little while longer, then the ground behind the dumpster. Then he put something in his paper Whole Foods bag and headed out towards Dempster street.

I turned away, waiting for my train. On the other side of the train tracks was another middle-aged man, dressed plainly in washed out jeans and a practical jacket. He toed the edge of the platform, leaning over the tracks. Then, quite calmly, he pressed a finger first against one nostril and then the other, loudly heaving its contents onto the tracks.

Ummm. GAG. ME.

Between the dumpster diver and the snot spewer, I'm not sure which behavior was more disgusting. Great start to the morning.