“Man sits on the subway sipping a cup of tea. The homeless guy sitting next to him starts coughing – hacking like he’s about to cough up a lung, and our man glances over at him, wondering what’s wrong with the guy. The bum starts coughing again, but louder this time, and you can hear the sound of the cough tearing up his throat. Then the bum’s ear falls off, and he catches it and tries to stem the bleeding with his free hand. Everyone else in the train is trying to get away from him, rushing towards the doors at the other end of the car, but our man, he sits there, and he turns to the bum and says, ‘Hey, ain’t you got any fucking manners? This is a subway, not a goddamned leper colony.’ And the bum, he’s sitting there with his ear in his hand, and he turns to the man and says, ‘Mind saying that to my good ear?‘”
Note: I dont remember the source of this story.