Douche bag alert and regulation

My colleague Jeff and I were finishing up our drinks at 83 Proof around Midnight, last Thursday night-Friday morning – big shout out to Hazel and Mark, btw – after a hectic night of editin’, paginatin’ and copyeditin’ for the SF Examiner. While plotting our next move, Jeff suggested we go to the Toronado since we were going to the Lucky 13 – our regular Thursday night watering hole – the following night to drink with Muni Diaries’ own Jeff Hunt and Tara Ramroop, who are celebrating their recent engagement (Like it hasn’t been mentioned on Muni Diaries a hundred times already, but, I digress). So I says, “Since you want to go to the Toronado, I suggest we take the 6-Parnassus, cause it’ll drop us off right out front.” After some haggling and debate over the length of time the 6 will take versus the underground, Jeff acquiesced to my suggestion, and what a great decision that turned out to be.

With “trusty” nextbus on my cell phone, I saw that we had 5 minutes to catch one at Market and Battery streets. Five minutes turned into about 6 or 7, but the bus did come (thankfully) and we got on. I sat in the seat on the driver’s side that has that extra leg room, just behind the first row that faces forward. Jeff sat on the seat behind me, and at this time, we were the only passengers on the bus. As we head down Market, stop to stop, the usual mish-mash of folks slowly amble on, from the young man with the drum sticks and faux-hawk, to the late-shift restaurant workers getting off work, to the quiet, silent types with their headphones and glasses, to the crackhead who had a hard time getting his fare together who then sat behind the driver not far from the young man with drum sticks and proceeded to sing and talk to himself trying to make eye contact with everyone in the front of the bus. This caused young man with drum sticks and faux-hawk to move to the back of the bus, opposite the driver’s side, to the seats that face each other. He sat in the row facing the front of the bus. A couple stops later, wanna be alpha-male and overall-slick mother fucker douche bag gets on the bus.

He’s well-dressed, with a brown leather coat that goes a bit lower than the waistline. He’s wearing jeans, a button-up shirt (I think) and a vertically striped black and white scarf, if I remember correctly. He’s got a bit of a Mediterranean look, long, curly black hair, could be Hispanic in origin, but his attitude and vibe is definitely douchey-American. First thing he says, he says to himself – but he’s fishing too, looking, craving for someone to talk to, to show his righteousness, and most important, to entertain himself – he says, walking down the aisle, “Ahhh, the 6!” I avert my eyes the same way everyone at the front of the bus did to the crackhead a few stops earlier, Jeff responds to the comment with a “Woo woo!” Douchey McDoucherson sits down opposite the young man with the drum sticks.

“Hey man, you a drummer?” McDoucherson says to the young man. The young guy lets out a protracted “Uhhh” – I’m thinking he’s trying to make something up to have as much fun with the douche bag as the douche bag is expecting to have with him, but I think I’m giving him too much credit – before he says he was at a show, and the drummer threw the sticks into the crowd and that’s how he got them. Then douche bag proceeds with the 20 questions: Who was the band? They’re from New York? I’m from New York, how come I never heard of them? They’re an up-and-coming band?

“No, you know, the only reason I say, is because me and my buddy were just playing [blah, blah, blah] and you know, I’m just doing my solo thing … [blah, blah, blah],” McDoucherson says.

To which, both Jeff and I are like, “I’m just doing my solo thing, you know,” and we’re laughing, which gets a look from McDoucherson, but not much more. Douche bag and dude with drum sticks settle into a nice conversation of their own, and Jeff and I revert to our own conversation, giving little thought to the douche bag in the back, that is until a few stops later.

Few stops later, a young woman with long, straight, black hair gets on the bus and sits one row behind Jeff on the opposite side of the bus. She’s wearing a light blue overcoat over a black skirt. She’s playing with her phone, probably texting someone, reading a text or checking messages, she kind of laughs every now and then, shaking her head, as we’re moving along, and it’s not until around Laguna and Haight streets that I realize she’s been listening to the douche bag in the back, and she is not impressed. She turns around to face them.

“You guys are such douche bags! You should hear yourselves, ‘Oh, I’m so sick of going to these shows and all these chicks want to suck my dick.’ What the fuck is that?” she says. Jeff and I just about exploded in laughter, while Douchey McDoucherson is all, “What? You don’t even know what we’re talking about, who are you?” She then says, “Oh yeah, you don’t know how many times I go to a show and say, ‘I’m so sick of all these guys coming up to me, asking me to lick my pussy, I just can’t deal with it.’ Do you know how douchey that sounds?”

McDoucherson, acting as if he’s upset, clearly relishing the confrontation, can’t argue any better than saying, “You don’t know what we’re talking about, you go calling us douche bags, and you don’t even know what we’re talking about, we’re talking about going to shows. I wish I was your friend, I wish I was your friend, yeah.” And dude with drum sticks, meekly backing up his new best buddy, says, “Yeah, you called us douche bags, you don’t even know what we’re talking about.” She says something to the effect of what she’s already said, saying she heard them say the thing about chicks always wanting to suck the dude’s dick and what a hardship that is for him, and then ultimately just ignores them. Jeff and I are laughing and trying to encourage her with nothing more than our laughter and a few approving nods, but then as we get to Fillmore and Haight streets we realize we have to get off, as does the bad-ass, douche-bag-regulatin’ chick, who went slowly into the night, head perhaps shaking at the number of douche bags in the world, quietly satisfied that she had done her small part in hopefully helping someone realize he is a douche bag, while Douchey McDoucherson, shit-eating grin on his face, and dude with drum sticks watch from the 6’s window. McDoucherson says, still smiling, “She’s so angry.” Dude with drum sticks says, “Yeah.”

As douche-bag regulatin’ chick walked down the street, Jeff yelled after her, “You are a hero!” She just kept walking, never turning back. Jeff says, “I wonder if that made me look like a douche bag?”

Rob Nagle is a copy editor and designer for the San Francisco Examiner, and truth be told, has had his share of douche bag moments.