I had to pee

I pick up change. You know how you walk along and you see a penny and you check to see if it's heads-side up because then it's lucky? I don't do that. I pick up change: all change, from where ever I see it, and when it comes to change my normally myopic vision, which prevents me recognizing people who are more than five feet away, allows me to spot pennies half buried in dirt across the street. In fact my dear friend and shopping partner, A, once had a conversation with her husband regarding how small a denomination I would deign to remove from the top of a dead rat in a gutter if the rat looked like it had been struck a car and the corpse was in no way punctured or oozing. They thought the denomination was very small and it's worth mentioning that at the time I was a bit of a hypochondriac and they had factored that in.

I say "at that time" because I am currently in India and I think it's fair to say that no actual diagnosed hypochondriac would ever come to India of their own volition. I have seen, touched, and even eaten things that previously would have required disinfecting whatever body part had come in contact with the offending object. At this moment I am on a public computer using a public keyboard in a country that still has leper colonies, plural. The only reason to have leper colonies plural, unless armadillos are the current must-have accessory, is because someone didn't get the memo that's it's freaking contagious. But here I am, still typing and intending to do so again in the near future, probably after I go get lunch and use the same soap that has been used by countless strangers to wash my hands, before sitting down at a table that has been wiped with a rag the waiter has just tugged out of his dhoti, while watching a cockroach bigger than my thumb (not including antenna) leap off the bag being carried to the curb and head back toward the kitchen. See, "at that time".

Anyway the restaurants are nothing on the bathrooms, trust me I have been in them. Just take a moment and let your imagination wander as you consider what that means. Remember that Indians don't generally use toilet paper, reflect on the a country who's idea of garbage disposal is to take it outside and that's it, then let me add one piece of information. You know those disks they use in urinals in the states to keep the smell down? In India they put them in the sinks.

Okay, still with me. Let's put it all together: I pick up change; people have postulated that a dead rat would be a mild deterrent due to my hypochondria; I am in India and have apparently overcome the worst of my hypochondria; and finally, I use public restrooms in India (do you see where this is going?).

I just picked up TWO Rupees off the floor in a public bathroom in India!

Dude, if you see a dead rat that looks like it was disemboweled post-mortem you can be sure that someone told me they saw it swallow a nickle.