Really, I don’t expect much out of life. In many ways, I’ve got far more than I deserve: a loving wife, friends and family, a good job, a sense of humor.

Honestly, I don’t even expect or insist that the Jarvis el stop be clean. The smell of urine is, if not one if its charms, at least one of its defining features.

But I don’t think it is too much to ask: Please, no shit on the stairway.

I found, and rather studiously avoided, a big pile right on the landing between the two sets of stairs on my way back home from the Cubs game Tuesday night.

What’s the thought process that results in this? I understand that when you gotta go, you gotta go, and if you’re homeless it’s probably tough finding a place that will let you use their bathroom. But is the Jarvis stop so devoid of traffic that taking a dump right there on the stairway is as serene as a corporate honcho’s private bathroom?

What happened to doing it in the alley, behind a dumpster? Or in the bushes in the park?

By the way, I thought briefly of telling the station attendant about the matter, but I didn’t, mostly because I couldn’t be bothered but also because I didn’t want to be the one to deliver the bad news. Who wants to be the guy who has to inform someone that shit-cleaning has just been added to his nightly roster of duties?

I expect, at least, that some kind soul might return the favor to me someday.