Welcome to the Trash Shed Motel

I always thought of this as just a stinky shed full of trash.
But apparently it can also be used as a makeshift motel room.
Well, I'm sure it's not much dirtier than the rooms in the motels along
Queens Blvd.

I had a disturbing encounter on Saturday morning on Woodside Avenue. It was around 10am. I was collecting litter around the overpass between 72nd and 74th. Sometimes when I'm rollin' around with the garbage can, people come up to me and deposit their trash. They always ask first. Actually, sweet story that occurred right before the yecky event: 2 moms with strollers, and one little boy of about the age of 5, were walking down the block while I was litter collectin'. The little boy picked up a bottle from the curb and deposited it in my garbage can. Aw! A Junior OGCLE! Of course the mom yelled at him for touching garbage, and honestly I would not encourage anyone to touch trash with their bare hands. But I still thought it was really sweet of the little kid.

A little further along Woodside Ave, closer to 72nd Street, a man came up to my can and stood there holding out what looked like the remnant of a blue slurpy. I said, "Yes, you can put it in here"- actually I had to repeat that a couple times, because he seemed to be spaced out (AKA, drunk). Finally he dropped the cup in the can, and I thanked him and went back to picking up litter. I assumed he had walked on, because he was no longer in my peripheral vision. But when I got to the garbage shed (pictured above), the blue-slurpy guy was suddenly right there. I had walked inside the fence (not pictured, but there is an unlocked fence around the shed area), and he walked in right behind me. He caressed my hips when he passed. I was so freaked out that I backed out of the fence. Meanwhile, he went up to the shed and started trying to pull open the door. There was a cinder block holding it closed, as you can see in the photo, but he was so drunk(?) that he didn't see that all he had to do was drag the cinder block out of the way. Good thing, though. Anyway, he kept gesturing for me to come toward him/toward the shed. So naturally I hightailed it out of there. I went up about a block, and pretended to keep picking up trash (tho the bag was too full to add any more crap at that point). After a few minutes I figured surely he would be gone, so I headed back to the shed. Actually, first I tied up the trash bag, so I would only have to throw it into the shed and get out of there ASAP. I didn't see the drunk dude when I got there, and I was able to throw the bag into the shed (first I took a perfunctory look to make sure he wasn't inside). A second after I closed the shed door, the guy appeared again, right there within the fence. He said something to me which I couldn't comprehend, and then stumbled over to lean against the side of the building next to the shed. I noticed that his fly was unzipped this time, and he was about to start touching himself. I did not stick around to see anymore. I just grabbed my garbage can on wheels and headed back onto Woodside Avenue. The creepy little drunk guy followed me at least halfway up the block (I didn't turn to look back after that, I just accelerated). Ugh.

He was like a foot shorter than me so I don't think he could have done any physical harm to me (plus, I had the advantages of not being drunk, and also of having my trash-picker, which could be used to clunk him over the head I guess). But still, the encounter made my heart beat really fast. Who the heck wants to experience such a gross thing? Shouldn't he be doing this in the privacy of his own home, or on the 7 train? (ha ha, just kidding). Blech. Just thinking about it now made me vomit in my mouth a little. TMI?

For what it's worth: he was very clean and "normal" looking (that is, he did not look homeless or derelict or obviously drunk). He was wearing a spotless white tee shirt, tucked neatly into light-blue jeans that were also clean. He was clean shaven and didn't smell. Heck, I didn't even smell booze on him, so maybe it wasn't drunkenness that made him act weird. Maybe he's just a gross perv (gee, ya think??).