Mission Mission

We decided on Drew’s story, probably because it blends humor and excitement with horrible, horrible violence. Also, Drew strikes the right tone, coming across not as a transient dabbler in San Francisco, but as someone who calls this place home.

For his troubles, Drew will receive an S-Castro t-shirt from MuniShirts — blue ink on a light blue American Apparel adult medium. His story starts like this:

I’m riding the bus down Market street in Civic Center around midnight sitting near the back door when a middle-aged homeless guy in the very back starts lighting up a cigarette. The driver yells to him “You can’t smoke here”. Homeless guy flips him off and puffs away. Driver says “No you don’t; not on my bus!”. Driver slams on the brakes at Market between 6th and 7th, gets up, walks down the aisle, rips the cigarette out of the guys’s mouth and throws it out the window. “Out!”, the driver yells.

See how it ends.

If you can get past the typography and the fact that you hate Muni, you might be desirous of one of these shirts from MuniShirts. If so, you’re in luck. Whoever leaves the best Muni/Mission-related anecdote in the comments section below wins a free tee of their choice.

Winner will be selected one week from right this second by MuniShirts and Mission Mission, though we will be heavily swayed by reader input, so tell us which ones you like, if you want.

Chinstrap not included.

UPDATE: Walter from MuniShirts says: “[I]f you win and want a line that isn’t available I’ll start printing that line on a regular basis. Booyah!”

More:

Heart for Your Muni Line on Your Sleeve at Eye on Blogs.

Line Pride! at Curbed SF.

Reader Megan, in the comments, turned me onto a great MUNI blog, The Deuce Deuce.  While quickly browsing through the archives, I came across this serious-looking cat:

Serious Cat wants you to get serious about Mexico.

I got on the 22 Fillmore.  I’ve lived around the corner from it for 20 years.  You never know what you’re gonna find.

I see this woman sitting there with a CAT in PUBLIC, on the BUS, dressed in a kitty-sized SOMBRERO with the word “Mexico” embroidered on it and looking completely serious like there was nothing wrong with any of it. — Lisa Geduldig

AWESOME.

(link)

MUNI Diaries brings us a pretty intense story from the 22:

…A few seconds later, these guys walked around to the front of the bus shelter where I was standing. There were three of them. Three Hispanic guys who spoke only Spanish. They were all over the place. One guy was even wandering in the street. I noticed that each of them had a bottle of tequila in their hand.

Suddenly, a black guy came out of nowhere and started speaking broken Spanish to these guys. The black guy walked in the street a bit and around the bus shelter, in plain sight of me, but out of view of the cameras located at the intersection. I’m not sure what triggered it, but one of the Spanish-speaking guys must have pissed off the black guy. This black guy was a young kid with nothing to lose. He seemed to be by himself and started talking mad shit to these guys in Spanish. It almost seemed like he was trying to egg them on into a fight. As soon as the black guy walked right in front of me, he lifted up his sweatshirt to show the fact that he had a gun in his drawers. Everyone standing in the bus shelter bolted out of the area, including myself. The other guys saw the gun, but continued talking back to the black guy. It was like the threat of the black guy having a gun and using it didn’t even phase them. These guys were obviously intoxicated.

Get the full story here.

Muni Diaries will be hosting “Riders with Drinks” this Friday at 7:30pm at the Make-Out Room on 22nd.  I personally cannot wait to hear more surreal stories of “the Muni Humper” while getting sloppy off $2 PBR.

The above is the answer to the following question, posed by Iron Davy Cole:

What’s the best use of the seat next to you on a completely packed 14?

Link.

Update: Ass Clown Redux. (Thanks, Eve!)

Muni Overhead Wire Technician has got to be kind of a sweet gig during those moments where they’re stuck in rush hour traffic and they just get to hang out up there.

Previously:

Close Call! Truck vs. Muni Overhead Wire Repair Vehicle

Iron Davy says the kids call it the “9X.”  Link.

Previously:

14X Suction Talk

Oops, I’m on the 14X

Yesterday I managed to snag a seat on a crowded BART train, getting on at the 24th street station, delighted to have a few minutes to read.  My current book is West of Kabul, East of New York, the 2008 “San Francisco Reads” pick which may as well be called “Lael Reads” because I have yet to see another person doing their mandatory civic duty.  Surely if we all at least skimmed this book our BART and bus rides would be filled with scintillating conversations and good-natured ribbing of the main characters. However, my dreams of constantly striking up heated debates with mysterious and articulate literary strangers hasn’t quite panned out, no matter how visible I make the cover of the book.

So anyway, I sat down and began to read.  It is at this point that my seatmate, a girl in her twenties, begins to complain to her friend sitting in front of her.

“So, I’ve begun noticing that the same kinds of people ALWAYS sit next to me! I mean what is it about me that attracts them?”

She then proceeded to turn and look at me. Then she turned back to her friend.

“It’s always these old Asian women, with lots of shopping bags.”

I am neither old nor Asian, and I carried exactly zero shopping bags.

Girl: “I just wish that once, some really hot guy would sit next to me and start talking to me.”

She then looked over at me again, this time in disgust.

I looked back.  I sensed in her a kindred spirit, someone else who wanted to connect with a stranger. I thought about sharing my book approach with her, but there are only so many hot guys in our city, and even fewer who read, and I deemed this secret strategy too precious to be shared. So I kept silent, knowing she would never know just how alike we were, and that old Asian ladies sit next to me on BART all the time too.

We love David Cole‘s “pixely homage to the greatest bus line in SF, the 14.” Link, or click to enlarge.

And here’s a lovely accompaniment, also courtesy of Cole:

Man looks back at source of liquid creeping up bus floor. Someone else: “IT’S FUCKING BEER. STARING AT IT WON’T CHANGE THAT.” #14muni

Link.