22 strange and unpleasant, if not quite traumatizing things I've seen on the Paris metro

Gonna say right up, that I might not be able to come up with 22. At least not on one go. But in case I fail to write down 22 things, I still have a month to come up with them... And these are in a random order. Some of them are more tragic than funny, some are kind of both...

1. Château Rouge's resident crack-lady. A big, black woman with a very disoriented look in her glassy eyes can almost always be found on the direction Porte de Clignancourt side of the tracks sitting on a bench. She can be mumbling and/or shouting something incomprehensible if she has not passed out. She passes out in a seated position with her arms and legs spread in a very relaxed manner. She has almost always peed her pants so sitting on a bench on that platform is not recommendable. Also, as Heli and Ulla were also surely very pleased to witness, she sometimes takes a leak on the platform. Puddles of anything liquid on the platform are not to be stepped into. Sure, it could be just water sometimes. Or not.
2. The traveling crackheads. This is a general category. They might just have passed out somewhere on the train, when the only problem they cause is the smell. Crackheads have other priorities than staying clean (no pun intended, or maybe a little one) that control their actions. If they haven't passed out (yet), they can be mumbling or shouting. Once I experienced all three options in the same carriage. Passed out and mumbling are usually only a stink problem. The shouting ones are a bit more scary, since they often are pretty aggressive and totally unpredictable. Most of the time they are screaming at people not present in the train (i.e. Sarkozy) or to an evil, invisible twin. They might even be staring directly to your direction and shouting obscenities. The thing is, that it's just the eye that is pointing at you. What the crackhead sees, can be anything, anywhere. Just hope it's not the mumbling guy cooking the last dose of crack cocaine on earth that he's seeing there, where it's just the harmless little you sitting and listening to your i-pod and breathing only through your mouth.
3. Smelly people who are not on drugs (at least not so much that it shows) but still manage to produce pretty heavy and disturbing odours. This can also be divided into categories. 1: People who don't use deodorant but who do use shirts made of synthetic materials that don't breath. WHY? 2: People who might use deodorant, but it's a very, very hot day and, oh well. This could even be me. But if this is you, and if the metro is quite full, please don't hold on to anything so high that you must lift your arm. 3. People who don't wash often enough. EEEUUUUGGH! Also people who've worn the same coat for decades without washing it. WASH IT! 4. People who've just (seconds before) finished their cigarette and are getting on a really full metro right next to you and you end up breething the fumes floating around them. These fumes are probably caused by spending the day in a smoke filled room. COUGH! 5. The Sephora echantillon overdosers. These are usually tourist women who get on the metro somewhere close to a Sephora or another big cosmetics shop. They have just tried on 5 to 28 different perfumes. They can't smell them anymore after spending hours sniffing around the Chanel shelf. And you wish you couldn't either. A great way to get a banging headache also.
4. Musicians. Here I mean the "artists" who get on the trains. The illegitimate ones. The ones playing in the corridors on the stations all have special authorisations and they have to pass a casting to get it. Not a very hard one obviously, judging by the frequency of panflute macchupicchu-inca/apache indian -groups blasting el condor pasas from their speakers. Most of the corridor artists seem like pretty capable musicians though. There is of course also "Raisa's favorite SDF", a (probably) homeless guy who plays hats (yes, hats) with a big smile on his face and sings/makes noise just below the escalator of the Arc de Triomphe exit at Charles de Gaulle-Etoile -station. He might not be the most capable musician, but he is capable of getting you somehow in a good mood. Or at least he'll make you laugh. A unique talent, he is. I'm pretty sure he hasn't passed the castings either... On lines 1 and 2 in particular you can "enjoy" the illegitimate entertainment. Usually it's a man or a woman, who has some kind of a stereosystem attached to a shopping trolley and a mug attached to the stereo. They climb in, turn on the background tape and start singing (besa me mucho/numa numa yeah/etc. classics), playing french horn, etc. They do a set of about 2 masterful interpretations, then leave the playback on, take a tour with their mug and get off. Then there's my personal favourite, the mini-synthethiser man. He gets on, throws a mini synthethiser on his shoulder and turns on the rythm. Tshih tshih tshih goes the rythm machine. Then he starts playing some chords and singing them as well. Aaaah aaaah aaaah hmmm hmmmm mmmmmh mmmh. Then he starts singing in some language that I don't know. But he has a pretty agreeable voice, still I can't get past the comic aspect of that mini synthethiser played vertically on his shoulder. There is also a guy in a cheap clown suit walking up and down the aisle making parrot- and fart noises. But he can't be considered as a musician I guess. And then. He shouldn't technically be mentioned, since he was on an RER train and not on a metro. But he has to be mentioned since he is a Michael Jackson impersonator. He got on the train, turned on Thriller and started dancing and doing Michael Jackson "WHOA"s and the act went on for 10 minutes at least. Totally unexpected. And fairly absurd.
5. The beggars who tell their life story. Ok. Life is hard and for them it's even worse. I feel for these people I do, but it's a very uncomfortable feeling that you get when you're riding home and a pretty average looking young girl gets on and starts by apologizing for bothering everyone and then goes on explaining in a loud voice to the whole carriage everything starting from an abusive childhood to youth delinquance to unemployment to drugs to prison to not adapting the society to drugs to prison to a mental institution to trying to adapt to not finding work because of her background to having to do this. It makes you question your own moral integrity as well as her's as well as the construction of french social welfare and honestly, out of the blue on my way home from work or from wherever, it's too much for me to digest. And then I feel quilty for looking away, turning up the volume on my i-pod and not giving anything, like 99,8 % of the people. This happens often btw.
6. Huge and nasty looking dogs. Ok, I admit it, I'm a recovering dog-phobic and I feel a bit unsure with dogs. And I think they can sense it and for that reason obviously want to sink their teeth into my throat. But these are the kind of dogs that you'd rather not be in a small, closed space with. They usually have a Hannibal Lecter-type of a very credible muzzle, but I always think that they could just break it apart in the manner of the Tyrannosaurus Rex in the Jurassic Parc. And they often look like they would really want to, their whole thorax moving as they pant heavily and seem kind of panicked. And sometimes that muzzle is open and the owner isn't looking that credible either, usually leaning on the dog to stay in an upright position. Call me neurotic, but those animals make me feel like getting off and catching the next train.
7. A geisha.
8. A couple of a certain age making out in a very drunken manner.