Coveting thy neighbor’s Walkman on Muni

We don’t usually know how close we came to getting jacked on the bus. One rider, Curtis Richard Tom does. He recalls a unique o/h on Muni conversation that provided oddly, unsettlingly intimate insight into a would-be theft. Here’s Curtis:

======
This happened back when cassettes were the main mechanism in personal music devices. I was using a recordable Walkman, with manual/auto level record, pitch/speed control.

I had some blank space at the end of a tape. I hadn’t had a chance to flip the cassette yet, so I still had my headphones on. Through the foam ear pads, I could hear the couple in front of me having a quiet argument.

“Yeah, it’s a nice one, but no,” said the girl.

“Why not?” Asked the guy.

“You see how tight it’s strapped up under his armpit?” My Walkman was webstrapped pretty close.

“Yeah, so?” he countered.

“You’re not getting it from him unless you knock him out. Subduing him might be possible, but it wouldn’t be trivial. Forget it.”

He looked me in the eye once. “Yeah, fine.”

I was done listening to the silent hissing of my blank spot of tape and finally flipped it like I hadn’t heard them.

======
More overheard convos:
A misinterpretation of your “meaning”

Photo by @zacharyzito