Man Brings Suspiciously Chill Peacock On NYC Subway

Riding the New York City subway is always an adventure, but sometimes the things you encounter are a bit more colorful than others.

In one particularly egregious example of, “I’m sorry, what the f**k is that?!”, a man was spotted carrying a literal peacock whilst traveling:

Now, there’s a lot to say here.

For one, how is this peacock so chill? Additionally, how is everyone around the peacock so blasé? Who among us would not want to ogle that peacock in all of its subway-riding glory?!

What’s even more incredible about this situation is that the NYCT Subway account chimed in and asked that the reporter who tweeted the photo provide more information:

“Incident”?! Uh, MTA, you have a lot of other things to worry about than dope-as-hell peacocks on the subway. Fellow Twitter users chimed in to say that no one should “snitch” on the peacock and claim the peacock did indeed have its own MetroCard.

Sadly, there is a twist to this story that many were not expecting.

Apparently, the man holding this intrepid peacock is Reid Watson, who refers to himself as the “MTA Peacock Guy,” and is known as on Reddit. And he noted that the peacock is not just any peacock. It’s a mascot.

A TAXIDERMIED MASCOT. So... yeah. That’s not a live peacock, y’all.

“It’s the mascot of a bar I run in Tribeca called Weather Up,” he wrote in a Reddit post. “The owner Kathryn is the blonde woman to right of me, she’s the owner of the peacock. It’s also stuffed, come to the bar for a beer.”

Here he is with the stuffed animal below:

We still thoroughly appreciate the stuffed peacock “riding” the subway. We can only hope to encounter a real one riding the rails someday soon...

It’s happened before. Perhaps it can happen again.

This story has been updated to include the name of the man holding the peacock.