Someone got off at the wrong stop.
“Used” condoms are popping up on the New York City subway system, and their perverted owners are tying them to the handrails. Gothamist first reported the seminal chaos over the weekend, when readers started sending in photos of what appears to be a fluid-filled condom tied to a pole on a Manhattan-bound F train.
As the days passed, the story went viral, and an orgy of condom reports on the F train flooded in. Some readers reported seeing the condoms as far back as last month. Today it appears that copycats and pranksters are getting in on the latex gag. Still it’s yet unclear whether the first dirty bomb of loaded latex was actually full of hand lotion, as the YouTube video below would have us believe.
It is clear, however, that the condoms are getting the Metropolitan Transportation Authority hot and bothered. Spokesman Kevin Ortiz told The Huffington Post that he’d rather talk about theMTA’s budget woes than the possible biohazard staring us right in the face.
“As an avid Huffpost reader I am disappointed that I get a request to speak about a photo of a condom on the train, when there are other more pressing issues for the MTA to deal with,” Ortiz said.
Ortiz hung up, but another spokesman told Gothamist that the MTA is doing everything it can to keep more than 6,000 subway cars clean. But they need your help. Spokesman Adam Lisberg wrote:
This has been brought to the highest levels of the subway system, and our cleaning crews will be on the lookout for it whenever they clean cars at the end of the line. They will also note the car number, and then will try to determine when it was last brought in for a more thorough cleaning.
Subway cars usually get a basic cleaning when they reach the end of the line — sweep up the litter, mop the floor. And while a condition like this should have been caught and remedied, I can understand why cleaners who are focused on the seats and floors would not necessarily have looked up at every grab bar on a 10-car train. Trains go in for a more thorough cleaning at various intervals, but without knowing the car number, we can’t go back and determine its maintenance history.
The point is, kids, don’t tie condoms to subway poles, and if you see one, make note of the subway car number and tell an MTA employee.