Mister Muni Manners

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Photo by Flickr user annnna.

For better or worse, this can go straight into our warm-and-fuzzy category of Muni stories.

I was on a 49-Van Ness/Mission trying to get home one evening after work. It was a really nice day: one of several schizophrenic, nice weather vs. crappy weather ones we’ve been having. As usual, the bus was full by the time it got to my stop. I grabbed a spot, held on, and spaced out. Then, I hear the tiniest “excuse me.” It sounded like it came from a fairy sitting in someone’s pocket. I looked around and didn’t see anything, so I commenced spacing.

I heard it again, then looked down at a little boy sitting in a seat near me. He looked from me to his dad, who indicated that he should give up his seat for the nice lady (hey, that’s me!). But he had to say it himself: “would you like to sit down?” asked the tiniest, politest person I think I’ve ever met.

I thanked him, but declined the seat. On my way out, I told his pop that he had a really nice boy.

1) Yeah, yeah, I don’t care if pop only does that to get at the ladies. It’s still nice.

2) I’m not gonna lie, I think it’s bogus when men push me out of the way to get to a fresh seat first. Equal rights and chivalry aren’t mutually exclusive, after all. So it made me extra happy to see semblances of it on the bus.

3) Did I mention I was on the 49? And that something nice happened on it?

Muni Is My Closet

A man carrying all his freshly laundered clothes from the dry cleaner boarded the 27-Bryant last week, casually hung them all on the hand rail like no big deal, and sat down to continue his cell phone convo. Riders Karoline and Mike snapped some pictures of the rider, making himself at home on Muni. Thanks, Karoline and Mike! (click images to embiggen them)

p.s. As a commenter asked, I meant to say that I found this to be a really cute and amusing sighting about urban living – I was on the bus with Mike and Karoline, and this totally made us smile. What do you know, it’s not snark here 24-7, and a lot of times the stuff that happens on the bus makes me love living in an urban city even more.

Three Cup Shuffle Scam on Muni


Photo by Flickr user photine

Muni rider Adam saw a group of people scamming Muni passengers on the 24 recently with the infamous “three cup shuffle” scam. I’ve heard about this scam being carried out on tourists at Fisherman’s Wharf and in some other tourist-heavy cities, but Adam’s description of what happened seems more threatening:

Today a friend witnessed a group of people gambling/scaming passengers on Muni. One guy would do the ‘which cup is the bottlecap under’ and bug nearby passengers about money, while flashing cash. A nearby passenger refused to pay attention so two other guys came up and threatened the guy into giving up his cash on hand. This was on a 24-inbound. They jumped off in the Haight. Not 10 minutes later another friend texts me that this same group of guys (whom he sees all the time) are on the 71-inbound doing the same thing. They intimidated a guy out of $40.

Adam said he called 311 and was transferred to SFPD, who then transferred him back to Muni. Adam also reports that the 311 operator would not take an anonymous report, but on the 311 site I found that you can indeed file an anonymous report about Muni.
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