On the mean streets of cities across our country illegal drugs continue to be a scourge. Last month, as I was exiting a coffee shop in Queens, on its doorstep, I spied the pictured single use drug container colloquially known as a garbage-pail. Dan identified it right away. Who knows what it once contained. Meth?   

This encounter launched Dan along memory lane. Back when he was living in LA, he met his friend Jenny, who owned a pug named Lupe. Dan loved that dog. Jenny traveled a lot and Dan frequently sat for him. Jenny also had a sister who had a drug habit and when she passed, Dan was dragooned into helping Jenny clean out her apartment. It was during one of these occasions that Lupe found some meth and snarfed it up. A visit to poison control ensued. Once having tasted meth though, Lupe developed a taste for it. On trips to a downtown LA park, he was able to sniff out additional scores. Lupe is an old dog now, both deaf and blind and no longer lives in LA. So, his drug dealing days are likely done, but I’m sure that he still has that itch.

As part of this conversation, Dan recounted one more encounter. Also in LA, Dan was having coffee streetside at a cafe. A rather bedraggled homeless woman asked for his help as he sat there sipping his coffee. Her hands were all cut, bandaged and bruised and she was unable to open her garbage-pail. Dan did the chore, and she thanked him so profusely that he felt gratified for his deed, even if it was not the best thing to have done.