Give the man a smoke

Today I sat in Central Park to eat my lunch. It was gorgeous, warm, sunny, green. The birds were chirping, flowers were colorful, the crazy people were in full bloom...

I didn't look, but I could hear to my left an angry man going on a tirade about wanting a cigarette and no one giving it to him. He was screaming at the top of his lungs. Somewhere in the middle of it he yelled out "You f**kers are the shit of the universe." That's right, he said it, shit of the universe. He dropped the U-bomb.

I didn't know how to feel about being called universe shit. There's universal shit, which everyone has, but universe shit, that's a whole 'nuther concept. What would universe shit be? Astroids? Personally, I don't have strong feelings about astroids. I'm not for them, not against them. I'm pretty indifferent. Now, dog shit, I have strong opinions about that.

So I started thinking about the etymology of shit, which I like to call Shitymology. There's being called 'the shit' which is always a compliment. Being 'full of shit' can offend or make you laugh, depending on how full of shit you are. There's 'in deep shit' and 'shit hitting the fan' and 'up shit creek' which are always bad. 'Holy shit' and 'Oh shit' are just simple exclamatory phrases. And then there nouns like the 'Oh Shit Handle' in a car. And of course the unit of measurement, 'A shitload.'

But 'shit of the universe' doesn't fall into a category. It can't be confined by a definition. It's kind of like the universe itself - hard to fit things in categories. Pluto - planet or not? Black holes - real or conceptual?

What I find inspiring is that deep in my heart I know that somewhere in a galaxy far far away, there is shit of the universe, waiting to be discovered.