Tales From Olden Days 1

Okay, bear with me while I post a couple of years-old stories from aboard Muni. Here’s the first:

March 2006: As I stood waiting for the 22 at 16th and Mission, I noticed a somewhat attractive woman approach the stop. A couple minutes later, the bus arrived, and seeing as how there were only a couple of other boarders besides myself, I kindly let this woman get on first.

I stood patiently behind her as she approached the fare machine, and she had some kind of words with the driver. I couldn’t quite make out what she said, but I did notice that she neglected to pay.

She turned and started walking back on a medium-filled coach. She took a couple of steps away from the machine, and as she did, I stepped up. With people behind me waiting to get on still standing outside the bus, I was doing my best to keep the flow of bus traffic moving steadily along.

I failed to notice that the attractive lady had taken a couple of steps and stopped, almost dead in her tracks. This caused one of my legs (or was it my foot?) to brush every so gently against her legs. As I slid my dollar into the fare-taker and took my transfer, I heard, peripherally, “Daaaaayum…” coming from her direction.

I ignored it.

I’m not good with confrontation, the more so when I’m sure I didn’t do anything wrong. Granted, I should’ve apologized. But doing so might well have escalated matters. Still, how could she not realize I didn’t mean to touch her? Really, why get so mad? I didn’t have anything to do with whatever she may have already been annoyed by, did I?

I sat down and plunged back into the magazine I was reading. She had vanished into the back depths of the bus. Good riddance, I thought.

As the bus made its way through “the wiggle,” from Church to Fillmore, and we approached my stop at Hayes and Fillmore, I noticed she had come up to the very front, rightside seat. That’s the one that’s typically occupied by driver-buddies.

Sure enough, she launched into conversation with our driver.

From what bits I could make out, she was going on about “he” this, and “him” that.

Then, a propos of nothing at all, she said, “And that niggah bumped right into my leg and didn’t even say sorry.”

I froze and kept reading, suddenly failing to comprehend the meaning of the words my eyes were scanning.

I ended up getting off the bus unscathed. But I mean, seriously … – Jeff