Remeber the film CHUD

Alright. Who let the CHUD out?

In the last 24 hours, I've used the subway extensively for work and running errands. Each time, I would see something odd just laying around the various metro stations. They weren't anything alarming or suspicious looking. I mean after all, we're now at code yellow, which is a whole color spectrum safer.

The list of items:
A hat which looked kinda like this hanging at the bottom of the stairs at Columbia Heights.

One running shoe near the third rail at Gallery Place. I looked for the other shoe, and blood stains as well. But, I found neither.

A pair of coveralls, which probably belonged to a maintenance worker, by the escalator at Woodley Park.

A pair of ski goggles (seriously, I've seen two people wearing it around town), your typical knitted gloves and hat all left behind on the train (last car).

Then just this morning at Columbia Heights, I saw a ripped (actually shredded) pair of jeans with paint all over it. Most likely a painter dropped it on his way to work, but I checked for blood stains anyway. It didn't even have any paint resembling red.

When I was a kid living near Chicago, CHUD really freaked me out. Manholes covers and sidewalk grates were avoided at all cost. No joke. Whenever I walked the dog, I made sure she never gets close to the storm drains. I still avoid sidewalk grates today, but that's just because I have fallen through one before. Since the crucial evidence - blood stain or half eaten carcass- was not present on each item I saw, I would like to think that it's safe for me to be near subterranean structures. But, like a splinter in my mind, I can't help but think that the CHUD were mostly only incinerated in NYC. Apparently they didn't kill them all.