Tales of the 49

I spent much of last Monday working at home. So, the first people I came into contact with all day were fellow 49 riders, headed north on Van Ness from the Mission, around 6 p.m. Needless to say (it was my own fault, goddamn me) I don’t recommend this to be your first, face-to-face interaction with the outside world.

Tale 1: There’s a woman on the bus with her tiny kid on her lap, and her baby paraphernalia, including a stroller, leaning on the seat next to her. I hate Seat Jabbas; you know – the people who take up enormous amounts of horizontal space, thanks to their bag, their computer, their food, etc. etc. etc. Yet, I can draw the distinction between unknowing/uncaring asshole, and a woman who clearly did not prefer Muni for whatever errand she was doing. We all love to hate cars, but this woman could probably use one.

In comes a crusty, probably not crazy but definitely pushy, woman who demands the mom take her stuff off the seat. Her reasoning? “You didn’t pay for all those seats.”

First of all, the idea that your FastPass or $1.50 single fare = one seat is a weird way to look at it. People stand on the bus all the time. That observation she made however, is far less offensive than the fact that she asked the mom to move her stuff (she had to put it all on her lap, with the kid).

Tale 2: The spiritual healer. He loudly healed a woman in the middle of an aisle, right where the bus starts accordion-ing. I don’t know what else to say about that, and I can’t imagine you need anything else. The fucked up thing is that she agreed she felt better after he “healed” her.

Tale 3: The backstory of Tale 3 is that I hate touching Muni. I think Purel should be a standard feature, but they probably don’t have it because people would barf and then shit all over the dispensers. I don’t touch people or things (even the handrail, if I can help it) on Muni, I duck AND cover my mouth when I have to sneeze. So, when people don’t provide the same courtesy for me, I get my panties in a twist for a few.

Tale 3 is one sentence long: A woman breathed (hard) on my hand while I was holding on to the rail. If that’s not a big deal to you, feel free to call me an asshole. But try to understand that in my POV, it’s really fucking rude to breathe on strangers in a crowded bus.