All Doors Are Closing

I need not remind you all I'm not a morning person. If you ever, ever forget that fact, just call me before ten in the morning. I hate to sound redundant, but it's an important reminder from time to time, and it is a rather necessary preface to this little tale.

This morning I caught the bus at pretty much the same time as I always do. I tend to be pretty much within the same range all the time. Today's bus was a tad more crowded than usual, and I wound up with a pack of grade school girls standing across from me. This was fine. But to give you an idea of just how close they were to me; one of them leaned back and went headfirst into my book, which was already leaning up by my chest.

This invasion of personal space continued for much of the ride from various people at various angles, but I can absolutely accept that as a necessary evil of public transportation. These things happen. That is not my gripe. Just, at the end of the morning's ride, I was already in a somewhat aggravated, somewhat fragile mental state. So getting off the bus was a bit of an adventure, and I'll tell you why:

Because all the damn morons who clog the bus stops of my fair city can't understand the simple concept of allowing people to exit a bus before putting their head down and trying to force their way into the doorway as if the bus will drive away and never come back.

Today, at my stop, I had to trip and stumble my way to the door, contorting myself like an Eastern European acrobat so as not to brain the people sitting down or to dry hump the poor overweight septuagenarian who no one was willing to give up a seat for. I see daylight, make my move, just happy to keep my shoes on my feet, and the next thing I know I'm almost taken out by the kneecaps by two women with jogging strollers who are trying to press their way onto my streetcar. They seemed to be hoping that, despite the fact that my large frame scarcely escaped with all limbs intact and no bodily harm inflicted on my person or that of those around me, that they might fool the keepers of the doors into somehow creating space for them so that they may magically board and ride comfortably.

This, dear readers, is not how I want to start a Wednesday. I try to be mindful of those around me, and I don't like to play the role of linebacker around my unsuspecting fellow commuters, least of all those with small children in tow, but I'll be damned if I wasn't close today. So the next time you go to board a bus, give those exiting ample time to get out of the bus (and out of your way - funny how those things coincide). It's rule number one of riding MUNI. Literally.

That's Gross MUNI Rider. Volume 2.

I've been wanting to write this blog for a while. Alas (and I realize it's definitely a good thing) I have been burning the candle at both ends getting my thesis done. Tonight, however, I took one night of reprieve to relax, have band practice, and get some much needed sleep. Don't look at the time stamp of when I wrote this. It doesn't count.

So anyhow... Not too long ago I returned taking the streetcar in to work in the mornings, after my CEO had ever-so-generously been giving me rides in the mornings. As deeply appreciated as it was, it's good to have the morning to read and shake the ol' dew off the lily. So part of the "joys" of riding the bus is the cast of characters I happen to share streetcars and bus stops with. One such public transportation utilizer I tend to wind up on a lot of trips with is a man who has earned the auspicious title "Snail Man".

I see him from time to time, he gets on and off the bus at my stop, he's not terribly far from my age, and he's an epic geek. Not in the good way. You can just tell. So I tend to be generally indifferent to most passengers, and with my wondrous headphones, I usually don't have any occasion to interact with people, but I just got a weird vibe off the guy from day one.

Then, one day, as I'm walking down towards the bus stop, he is about ten or fifteen paces ahead of me. I find it a little odd that he seems incredibly focused on something along the wall [I should take a second here to insert the fact that I live across the street from a school and public playground, so there's a lot of plant life and all that]. So as I get a better look, I see he's picking up a snail and putting it on the top of the wall. Odd, but hey, whatever. Then he stops again, about ten paces later. And picks up another snail. He places it down on a plant just the other side of the wall. Then he picks up a third snail off the wall, and tosses it into the street.

Odd.

I have kept my space a tad more, as I don't necessarily desire to be in especially close proximity to someone who chooses to handle snails when hand washing is not an immediate option. The other day, though, it was a bit more than I could handle. I am standing at my bus stop, as per the usual, and up walks Snail Man. It's just he and I, and as much as I am doing my best to ignore him, I can't help but see: he's put something down on the edge of the railing that protects me from being crushed by runaway vehicles. At least on the one side. But I get a glance at what he has placed on the railing.

It's a fucking snail.

This is not some impetuous "moving a snail along a wall where it already was" or "giving it back to nature" thing. This man, a seemingly normal individual, decided for some bizarre reason to pick up a snail, carry it from wherever he first got it, transported it across the street, to the bus stop, and was placing it somewhere unsuspecting where anyone could easily accidentally manhandle this poor snail. This, to my eye, is not normal. Then he proceeds to board the bus, hold the handrails with his possibly slimed hands, and proceed to what I can assume is his day's work. This is gross. This makes me want to vomit when I think about it. I mean, hell, hasn't he heard about swine flu? Maybe he's bearing some weird strain of snail flu. Either way, I have yet another reason to wash my hands vigorously any time I leave the bus. Thanks for that, Snail Man. And whatever you do, don't ever try to shake my hand. Because I won't.



On a completely unrelated note, I have added a little poll to the right hand side of the blog, below the links section, which is also recently expanded with some wonderful blogs from some wonderful people.