Perhaps you were pondering a story about a blowout bash of epic proportions filled with interesting people, a sumptuous feast of exotic delights and a continuous flow of sublime cocktails containing ingredients you’ve never heard of, all topped off with a unique location that immediately falls into the “once in a lifetime” category where you have to pinch yourself just to make sure you’re not dreaming. But I’m sorry to inform you, it’s not. Instead, it’s about the modern day sufferings of one of many minor indignities in life that, like a whack a mole game, keep popping up no matter how hard you smack them down. While seemingly mankind supposedly continues to evolve, it’s clear to me some people don’t and never will.
Two to three days a week I leave my car at home and take San Francisco’s famed “Muni” Public Transit system to work, in a vain attempt to pretend to reduce my carbon footprint, or whatever I’m supposed to do to be a good “green” citizen. It’s really quite famous for it’s “Muni meltdown” that occurred in the late nineties, where train service became so bad and unreliable that it was said you could walk between some stops faster than the trains would travel during rush hour. It happened as a result of a perfect storm of an aging streetcar fleet and rapidly increased demand during the height of another infamous period in the city known as the “Dot Bomb.” I’ve managed to survive both catastrophic episodes with my sanity in check and cementing my San Francisco existence within the cities storied history. Pinch me so I know I’m not dreaming, or on second thought, don’t.
Despite Muni’s well publicized dark days, it’s not all that bad once you’ve ridden it a number of times. Repeated use quickly familiarizes one’s self with the various quirks and issues the system presents its loyal riders on a daily basis. Mechanical hiccups, stinky chatty homeless people, giddy graffiti producing school kids, and random, inexplicable delays become less of a major annoyance, and experienced patrons learn cope with a good book or a cool puzzle or game on their smart phone. My current favorite is a puzzle that challenges you try to come up with as many word combinations out of a single string of letters in a couple of minutes. It can be almost magical they way it engages me and quickly passes the time during such occurrences.
A weary traveler’s phone can also serve as a great information tool when one can access a great little Muni web site that is designed to estimate the arrival of your next bus or train by punching in the street location of the stop you’re waiting at, on the route you’re taking and what direction you’re traveling. Nine times out of ten it seems to be reasonably accurate, and takes most of guesswork out of wondering when the next damn bus or train is going to show up. As an aside, a well utilized survival tactic I’ve learned is that it doesn’t hurt to know of a few good bars in the neighborhoods your route takes you through in case you need to hunker down for an adult beverage or two when the next meltdown occurs.
For those of you who have not been initiated in this or a similar commute experience, rush hour on any public transit system can be quite the test in patience and civility. There is usually the “chaos” time window of anywhere between 7:30 am and 9:00 am where most transit riders try to get to work, despite the risk of larger crowds and associated longer waits to get on a train or bus. Through my own personal experience the time frame threshold of when traveling on Muni is noticeably more crowded and difficult can be in as little as fifteen minutes before the “chaos” time window begins, and suddenly gets better fifteen minutes afterwards. A perfect example of urban synchronization at its finest.
On the days I’m more lethargic, lazy and just can’t get the hell out of bed, I usually miss avoiding the “chaos” time window and fall prey to the unwashed masses. This is when taking public transit truly challenges one to struggle to feel like a civilized human being while being pushed, shoved and stepped on by others who really don’t have any regard for their fellow commuters. Enter the backpack-wearer.
The domestic urban animal a.k.a “the city dweller” must adapt to their surroundings by being somewhat prepared and organized in order to successful exist among the other thousands, and in a few cases, millions of urban dwellers also trying to live their lives in crowded and congested conditions. The workdays can be long, and meeting the hectic obligations of both a career and having a life outside of work requires that some must travel with not only stuff for work, but stuff for after work related activities as well. For some it would be books associated with a night class or two, others it would be gym clothes or perhaps the makings of a really memorable party at an undisclosed location. Whatever those contents might be, the common backpack seems to be the vessel of choice to carry any given amount of stuff needed for the day. Let the suffering and ignorant displays of inconsiderate behavior begin.
Let’s face it; people who wear large backpacks suck. Period. While I applaud their organization skills of being prepared for their busy little days by carrying everything they own on their person but the kitchen sink, the rest of us unfortunately suffer from the fact that most insist on wearing them when on overcrowded buses and trains. Some are so large and stuffed with crap that they take up space for two people and prevent others from being able to get on and off at will.
When I encounter these clueless, self-centered schlubs, I can’t help but envision some disgruntled thirteen year old who’s running away from home. Their parents just don’t understand them any more and they need to find others like them that they can identify with in a secret enclave of misunderstood kids deep in the woods of Oregon or hanging out with burned out hippies and surfers at Venice Beach or the still popular Haight-Ashbury district in San Francisco.
Other backpack monsters appear to me to be super-nerd overachievers with zero social graces, and simply exist with all the shit they need to do anything at anytime, buried under their iPods listening to audio versions of Star Trek books written by William Shatner and narrated by James Earl Jones. If it were not for my semi-vivid imagination allowing me to see some level of absurdity in their existence and rudeness, I’d probably try to throw them under a bus or train with unbounded glee witnessing a standing ovation from all the other riders faced with the same plight.
Being the highly adaptable creature that I am, I’ve learned to have some fun with them by employing several offensive tactics that let them know my feelings towards their lack of consideration for their fellow commuters. The first one is the straightforward, causal but stern bump when getting on or off a train or bus, even then they’re not crowded. It’s enough to say “nice backpack, but get the fuck out of my way, dork”.
Other times the stern bump is not enough, and when I’m feeling more annoyed and feisty, I perform a more complex, drawn out brush and drag move where I pretend there is just no space between their backpack and other patron standing behind them, (and usually there really isn’t any room….), and I just slowly walk right into them, accompanied with an insincere “excuse me”. More often than not the “excuse me” is not heard over the din of James Earl Jones and they don’t make any attempt to move out of the way, so I simply proceed to almost push them down. Usually they are forced to turn sideways to move out of the way while shooting me even more upset and annoyed glares than the ones who just receive the casual bump. Sunglasses protect me from having to make eye contact and I’ll just stare straight ahead, waiting for any comment they might have. To this date, without fail, not a single backpack wearing dweeb has said anything to me after the push and drag. I attribute the lack of verbal responses due to the fact they must realize it just comes with the territory of being a complete ass by not removing them when taking the public transit system and showing a shred of decency towards others. Perhaps this unspoken knowledge they possess comes in the form of a tag that’s attached to all backpacks which outlines a basic code of conduct to follow when wearing one and what to expect when they don’t. At the bottom of the tag is a
stern warning not to remove it under penalty of law.
Even after years of taking Muni, this situation never seems to change, regardless of shifts in the social climate, backpack and bag trends, designs and technologies; not that any of those factors would really make a difference in the first place, but one can be hopeful at times, right? The encounter is almost always the same and as time goes by, it does seem to get a bit harder each time not to get all ghetto on the offender and giving them a high decibel piece of my mind. However, the trusty tools of the casual bump and the push and drag are always
at the ready, and I always faithfully resort to those instead of verbal confrontation.
In the end I’m glad I don’t choose the route to go overboard with confrontation, and attribute that ever growing restraint to my ever expanding coping skills and the realization that it just won’t change the world and would cause needless stress in my life which I just don’t need. Besides, it’s simply more fun share with all of you and write about it instead.
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