Category: diaries

What happens when the 47 doesn’t come…

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It was Friday night and I was trying to get myself from my quiet neighborhood to a hoppin’ joint in SOMA. But being that I am not the kind of girl with the cash money to cab around town (hence this blog), I waited for the 47 in our freezing cold July weather. Minutes turned into half an hour (as usual), so I decided to start walking down Van Ness, you know, to get a little exercise and see where the bus would catch up with me.

I walked and walked and of course, by now you can guess, the 47 is nowhere to be found. As I approached a red light at Van Ness and Geary, a nice silver Jetta rolls up and stops right in front of me. I noticed that the car is packed with four young men dressed in button-down shirts and fancy jeans — the typical outfit one might say is the douchebag uniform here.

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But when NextBus actually works …

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Ouch! Still sore well into this afternoon after that sprint to catch the 5-Fulton last night. We left a house on Oak after discovering from NextBus that we had nine minutes. We put our shoes and jackets on, rounded up the dog, and bailed at a brisk pace.

By the time we got to Grove Street, I randomly decided to check the iPhone. 1 Minute, NextBus said. Pause. OH SHIT! I started running, while Tara and the dog did their best to trot up the hill. By the time I got to Fulton, I saw the bus, our bus, approaching. I made it to the correct side of the street just in time.

When the doors opened, panting, I asked the driver to please wait just a few seconds for my girlfriend and dog. Boy, did he looked pissed. Fine. I did the whole one-foot-on, one-foot-off trick, and waited approximately eight seconds for the girls to catch up to me.

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Muni Half-Loony

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Stemming off Suzanne’s post about the mildly crazy man who baits you with a banal statement, then dives straight into the wackiness, I had a similar experience on the 38-Geary last week.

As usual, the 38 is filled to the brim by the time I pick it up at Geary and Franklin. There is a man with a large guitar case blocking one of the seats, so I politely (kind of) ask him if I could take the seat. He obliges, even adds a, “Oh, please have a seat,” and I’m ready to zone out until I get to my dinner spot. Guitar Man, a short, thin, 50-something punk type sporting David Byrne (recent, not Talking Heads era) hair, started chatting. As Suzanne said, morning commute is no time to be chatty, but I’d like to add that evening commute certainly isn’t either. Guitar Man makes a series of obvious observations, which include the fact that the bus goes faster once it gets to the Avenues, and that the 38 always seems to be crowded, doesn’t it? Harmless comments, and I quietly agreed that both those things were indeed true.

Perhaps at this point, because he started to become slightly annoying, I noticed his smell. And, if you remember my Pee-Pee Shed post, you’ll know how I have a knack for finding the stinky in Muni. Anyway, this person smelled like incense and whiskey. I don’t actually mind either of those things, but when you’re starving and tired, it’s a rather unpleasant way to spend a 30-minute bus ride.

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S.F. streetcars too popular for their own good

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One wonders whether the Chron’s C.W. Nevius has been reading Tara’s posts on Muni Diaries:

The streetcars, sometimes called “museums in motion,” have committed the cardinal sin of public transportation: They have become too popular.

For example, Monday afternoon at Fisherman’s Wharf, around 2:30, I climbed on car No. 1053, a green and silver model that ran in Philadelphia in the 1940s. It was pretty full when I got on, but at the next stop – right at Pier 39 – hordes of tourists clambered aboard. After several calls to get people to move to the back of the bus, the driver announced that we were now aboard “an express to the Ferry Building.” Sure enough, we shot past passengers waiting at subsequent stops as if they were invisible.

The link also includes another link to an article about a F-line streetcar collision Monday that injured 14 people. Ouch!

— Beth W.

Beth is an author and journalist who is not at all ready to break up with the F-Market line, but only because she rides it less than once a week. She already has messy relationships with the 22, 38 and 5.

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pee-pee shed

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I hopped on the 9x this week on North Point, right after work. Though this bus stop is on the same corner as my building, I’ve never needed to take a bus from it. I suppose we won’t count the time I tried in vain to grab a crowded 9x heading north toward work; that’s another dear-diary moment altogether.

I do walk by it quite a bit, and it always smells like an olfactory one-two of food garbage and piss. There is a garbage can nearby, and it is a Muni shed; so, months ago, I stored it in the Obvious folder of my brain and called it a day.

But now, we’re talking about now. And, now, up-close and personal, this thing smells horrible. Awful. Shit-awful, almost, but piss-awful is more like it. I sat in the shed for a second, until that rancid, nostril-filling smell of urine hit my nose. At first, it just smelled like a somewhat-dingy public bathroom. Then it smelled like a Port-a-Potty. You know, those really bad ones at beer or wine festivals that you wouldn’t be caught dead in, had it not been for the gallon of liquid now floating about your insides.

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Muni Loony #1: angry Moses look-a-like on Church and Market

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He is a tall and slender man, age between 50 and 60. His long white hair is combed straight back and if memory serves me right, he has a trimmed beard and a penchant toward leather vests. The funny thing about this guy is that he is totally homophobic, but chooses to get on at Church and Market, only to stare angrily at a targeted passenger. Oh yes, he usually picks one person to target, while he speaks loudly for everyone to hear. His usual tactics are to stand really close, stare and make loud pronouncements like: “sinner,” “shame on you,” or, “homosexually is a sin.”

The other thing about this guy is that he is really big into manners. If you bump into him and he doesn’t hear you say excuse me, the entire train will be blessed with an angry and loud tirade about manners and the occasional “homelessness is not a crime.” He will stare at the person who bumped into him even if they manage to stand far away, and he will shout with a murderous look on his face. The whole thing is really unpleasant and I’m not really sure why people tolerate it. I guess verbal abuse just comes with the territory.

– Suzanne

Category: diaries
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