today on the streetcar...

"Do you enjoy sodomizing yourself?" a booming male radio announcer-type voice asks.

WTF? What kind of annouce... wait.. who the...what is going on here? Well, for anyone who's ever thought to themselves, "who says that kind of thing?" I now have a face to go with the proverbial "crazy guy" on public transit. But, he was not smelly or even apparently crazy (unless, of course, you count saying totally whacked out things to strangers as crazy talk). By all appearances, he seemed perfectly normal, lazing against the window, occasionally looking around, but politely keeping to himself.

Then, a number of people step off the car and one woman gets on and takes a seat opposite him. She has dark hair and eyes, wears a tan coat with faux fur trim on the hood. She passively looks out the window. Did she look unusual? Not at all, Portland born and bred if I had to guess.

The man sits up, slowly leans over to her, and says, quite loudly, "Do you enjoy sodomizing yourself?"

How is a person supposed to respond to that? She immediately looks away from him and out the window, silent. I must have had a shocked, who-the-hell-are-you sort of expression on my face, because then sets his sights on me. He sort of half gestures and, for a moment, looks as though he's going to explain what he's just said, justify it somehow, but says nothing. Instead, he starts walking toward me.

"That's probably the kind of question you should keep to yourself," I say.

He takes his position at the exit door next to mine and continues to look at me. "Are you going to incur all that yourself?" he asks me.

It sounds like an important question. Only, I don't know what that even means. I step off the streetcar, thinking, Try not to get struck by lighting! and watch the little crazy man staring at me incredulously through the glass doors as the streetcar pulls away.