Your place to share stories on and off the bus.
It’s almost poignant. Definitely peaceful. And practically a perfect Christmas message.
Then you learn that an army of buses came to sleep in the lot at Stockton and North Point at 6:30 on a Tuesday evening, and, in keeping with the emotions and thoughts that Muni typically leaves us with, you wonder, WTF?
… and to all a good night.
UPDATE: I don’t think it was clear from the SF Gate report, but The Examiner‘s John Upton writes that the power outage shut down service for all Muni Metro. It’s back now, as SF Gate said, but the Examiner’s version is a lot more severe than we originally reported.
If you were affected by the service disruption, tell us your story in the comments, please.
ORIGINAL POST: SF Gate reports on a power outage in Civic Center.
I boarded an articulated 14-Mission last week, and purely for shits and giggles, I chose to sit in the accordion section. One of the two-seaters was open, so I figured, why not?
Immediately across from me was a man of indeterminate age and mental ability. He could very well have been 32 and mentally retarded or 54 and blitzed off his rocker. One thing was for sure — he wasn’t like the rest of us.
But he was relatively clean. The warning sign for me was his incessant chewing of the cud, a systematic gyrating forward and backward of his lips and jaws.
After my initial curiosity and observation, I let my eyes wander. But they were drawn back in an instant when I noticed something emerging from the man’s nose. It didn’t quite look like snot or mucous (what’s the difference, anyway?), but more like spittle. It fell in a clean line over and down his top lip toward his mouth, stopping just about at that line where lips meet face.
Until the store in Pier 39 of the same name (Only in San Francisco) starts selling Eau de Urine parfum and employs a yelling, angry schizophrenic mascot, I’m going to go ahead and call bullshit on their choice moniker.
Favorite thing overheard on the 49 last night:
“I’m just doing this until I get into in clown school in January.”
If you’re wondering, “this” is living in a work-here-and-get-free-room-and-board hotels off Van Ness. (I thought those were whorehouses?)
Anyway, many in SF (and in many major city) seem to be in a state of flux. I’m only doing this until I get into grad school. I’m working as a barista because I got laid off. I had a high-stress job, now I’m working on my writing and taking it easy. But I wonder how many other people around the world hear “clown school” in relation to a career on their ride home.
Maybe that Only in San Francisco store can start selling clown attire for the budding painted-person-entertainment industry.
-Tara
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Best of rides to you,
Muni Diaries Edit Team
Rode a 49 down Mission the other day for the first time in a month or so, and I noticed that the stretch between 16th and Cesar Chavez has actually gotten worse. It’s like kids have been out there with pickaxes, tearin’ shit up.
Perhaps the Obama administration’s infrastructure-stimulus plan can start right here in the heart of the Mission. I am now officially unemployed, and would love to get all Habitat for Humanity, only on road repair. Sign me up!