.harry, is the one I think you'll marry.

I've been putting off writing about this because, how? How do you write about this? I'm going to preface it by quoting a co-worker who heard the story (as everyone else in my life): "You know people who have been mugged? You know how they always seem to get mugged more than once? Yeah, that's you but with naked men on the F train"

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Monday was such a long day. I had to go uptown to drop off a book at the library but I decided to get on the downtown F like I always do and just go home. I just wanted to go home and shower and wash the day off of me.

I walk downstairs at W. 4th and the F train is stopped there with the doors open. I see that the car closest to me is practically empty (and everyone knows that if a car is empty at rush hour there is a reason and you should NOT ENTER!) and I run in, afraid the train would leave without me. I look down and see a puddle and a pair of shoes on the floor of the car. I think, "I've found the reason no one is here, someone must have peed themselves or something like that". I look up and over, in the last three seats at the end of the car is a man, a normal man, not homeless or crazy, just some middle-aged-but-obviously-not-quite-right guy.

He's sitting there naked except his tighty whities.

I run.

I run, in boots, to the other side of the train where I notice the crowd, all watching each person step on the train and watching them realize the semi-nude on the train.

We're clumped together, staring at the other side of the car. It was like a grade school bus where the weird smelly kid sits down and everyone moves to the other side of the bus. There's a seat up and I just plop down muttering, "Jesus fucking Christ, I just wanted to go home". The woman next to me is a jolly 60-something German tourist, who (and this just can't come across via text) is laughing and holds my arms and chuckles in a thick German accent, "Oh ho! He is naked, yah?" People are trying to pretend to read or listen to their iPods, but they aren't, they are so aware of this man that they can't really get anything done and are probably just reading the same line over and over again.

The man gets up. Stretches out like he just woke from a nap and mozies on out of the car and onto the platform. There is an unheard sigh of relief on the train. We all look at each other in some sort of weird triumph, like we defeated a monster and can continue with our lives. But, oh no, of course, it wouldn't end there. The man looks around the platform. Bends down. And pulls his tighty whities rightoff. He is now butt naked on the cold platform.

Does he stay on the platform? Of course not. He mozies back on the train (and thankfully a woman's head is in my eye sight of his crotch so I avoid complete trauma - sort of like that Austin Powers scene, but not funny, no wait, yes it was funny, even at the time). He sits back down. The women on the train burst into laughter and the men pretend like they didn't look and then glance at the woman as to say, "You know, the male body isn't that funny" (of yes it is).

Finally a cop comes on the train. Not just any cop. But the typical New York cop. A little bitter. A little handsome. A little built. And a lotta pissed off.

He just looks at the guy and asks, "What, are you fucking drunk buddy?"

The man just looks at him and says, casually, "Nope".

Cop gets more irked, "Then put some fucking clothes on. Where do you think this is?" The man says something I cannot hear, but couldn't have been anything more than an 'okay'. He puts on his tighty whities (which just adds to the hilarity, if they were boxers it might not have been as funny) and then his pants and stands proudly looking at the cop. Now two more cops are waiting for him on the platform. The original cop gets even more pissed and yells, "And your shirt!" The guy shrugs, walks out onto the platform to the two other cops while putting on his shirt. The cop in the car, in the most amazingly hilarious part of all, snaps on a pair of blue latex gloves, picks up the guys shoes and coat and just hurls it at the guy while shaking his head in anger.

The cops leave.

The naked man leaves.

The doors close.

The train starts and the survivors of the sorta-normal-looking-sorta-crazy looking naked man on the F train at rush hour start their journey home. I shake my head and mumble again, "I just wanted to go home". The German woman chuckles again. The men pretend that nothing happened and people keep reading, probably those same lines over and over again.

As the survivors continued our journey, waiting to all go home and call someone or tell our significant others you know what the best thing we did was? We kept silent on the train and just let the people at the next stop (Broadway/Lafayette) just sit there on those last three seats where bare naked weirdo butt had been just moments before. We kept silent and pitied those people. Danken Sie Gott für schadenfreude!