They're here. Not "out" there, or "over" there, but right here. They live. They are the many germs living among us. They live on us. They feed off of us, they suck our blood, and most of us don't even know it. I was blinded like the bland and timid masses for so long, but then a born-again Christian opened my eyes to the truth....

I left the house early that morning, so naturally, I paced myself to work. I got on the bus and was fortunate enough to sit next to a crazy-looking white dude named Yaddle.

He annoyed me with his yap about how he went to prison for molesting little boys as a camp counselor. He shared a cell with an inmate named Bluto who had a tattoo of a penis on his forehead and an unusually large asshole. But now he had accepted Jesus, so that made everything okay.

He gave me a small pamphlet that explained cleanliness is next to godliness. If I practiced good hygiene, then I would be accepted into the Kingdom of Heaven. If I didn't, then I would go to Hell.

The pamphlet said simple things like brushing at least twice a day would prevent my teeth from rotting like typical white-trash, North Philly crack whores.

Or like this Dominican guy at my job who's missing four front teeth and when he laughs he curls his front lip over the gap because he's secretly wishing no one will notice the whole in his mouth. I simply laugh harder at his dental shortcomings and tell myself that I certainly wouldn't want to look like that.

And it taught of the importance of washing my hands thoroughly after taking a fat, disgusting, contaminated shit. This is important when I go to bite my fingernails during a period of nervousness. I wouldn't want tiny pieces of shit from my hands rolling around in my mouth during any time of the day.

There are awful times when I had to rush to work after taking a milky shit in the morning and I had doubts about whether I had cleaned properly. Besides wondering if I was making long, dark skids in my boxers, I would sit on the bus and wonder if the people around me could smell the shit on my hands.

When I got off the bus, I tossed the pamphlet to the trash and proceeded to get coffee. I couldn't help but notice the uncleanness of everything.

I noticed a guy walking his dog. While the man was distracted, his dog looked to the ground and ate another dog's shit. The man then knelt down and let the dog thoroughly lick his face.

I noticed how the Pakistani food vendor's sweat dripped from his Arabian forehead into the foodstuffs that were to become my cheesesteak. I noticed how his beard nested the boogies from his nose, the saliva and phlegm from the sides of his mouth, and even some sauces that splashed from the his blackened grill.

I noticed how the homeless gather to wash and shower in the bathroom at the Philadelphia Public Library. Man, I made the mistake of sitting down to shit on one of the commodes in there and I was sorry. There was an itching sensation on the back of my legs up near my ass for two weeks.

It seems as if I am aware of the uncleanness of things. Yaddle's little pamphlet has changed my life forever. I have to be careful. You have to be careful. You have to remember that the next person you shake hands with may not have washed their hands after a runny dump on a contaminated commode. Remember my friends, they live........