I Ride MUNI for the Drama

And here I thought it was going to be just another boring MUNI ride…

Last Friday, I was on my way home, and I went down to catch the J-Church home. Lucky for me, I scored a seat in the waiting area, so I could give my feet a rest. You see, I chose to wear cute shoes that are easy on the eyes, but not so easy on the feet. After waiting about 20 minutes for a train, ye old J-Church finally decided to show up…just like Old Faithful, except for the part where it always shows up on time.

I boarded the train with the hordes of others that were waiting, and I was forced to stand and hold the bar above my head. As I stood there, I looked down at the guy sitting in front of me, and he was reading a travel book on Peru. A guy standing next to me, wearing his gym clothes, reached across me and tapped Mr. Peru on the shoulder.

"When do you leave for Peru?" Gym Guy asked.

"Oh, hey," Mr. Peru looked up. "I leave in four days. How are you?"

"Good." As Gym Guy responded, he backed away and shifted his body away from Mr. Peru.

Mr. Peru continued. "I've been really slammed lately. It's hard getting ready for this trip. I'm having deal with the fact that I'm totally ending my life in San Francisco."

"Oh."

"Hey, you went to India for a long time didn't you?" Gym Guy didn't answer. "Didn't you go to India? I'm wondering about your trip because I may be going there for work. How long were you there?"

Reluctantly, Gym Guy replied, "It was about 10 years ago. I'm sure things have changed."

"Nah, it's India. It hasn't changed that much. Where did you go?" Still nothing. "I'm hoping to extend my trip and travel."

"Oh."

And that's when Mr. Peru decided to stop trying since even though Gym Guy started the conversation, he clearly wasn't interested in actually participating. We pulled up to the next stop, and the girl next to Mr. Peru stood up from her seat, complimented my shoes (because they really are cute), and I took her seat. As I sat there, I kind of zoned out and didn't pay much attention to anything that was happening around me. Little did I know that drama was unfolding right before my eyes. We pulled into the third stop, when I noticed Gym Guy talking to Mr. Peru. He was angrily pointing and talking about how awful someone was. As I listened in, I realized that he was yelling at Mr. Peru.

Gym Guy stood over Mr. Peru, pointing at him accusingly. "You suck, you know that right? What you did was wrong. You're an asshole, and I hope you know that."

Mr. Peru just sat there, looking somewhat surprised (though not entirely). "I'm sorry you feel that way."

"No. You can't just weasel out of this. I hope you got all of your stuff out of that apartment when you came back from Madrid. You deserve whatever comes to you."

"I'm not going to talk about this here." Mr. Peru was still fairly calm, trying to not make a scene on the packed train.

"You don't have to talk. I'm talking. I want you to know that you're a jackass."

"I'm not going to apologize for anything I did…"

Gym Guy cut him off. "You don't have to. I needed to make my peace with you, and I saw you on the train. That's the only reason I said anything to you. I just want you to know that you're a real shitbag."

And then there was silence. Now, had everything gone as Gym Guy planned (or at least, as I believe he planned), the train would have reached the next stop just as he finished his tirade against Mr. Peru. Unfortunately for him, the train made an unexpected stop in the tunnel for what felt like an eternity, but was probably just five minutes. Still, five minutes is a long time to sit there in awkward silence after you've just handed someone's ass back to them on a pupu platter.

No one spoke. No one. Mr. Peru stared at his hands in silence. As I sat next to him, I desperately wanted to ask him what he'd done while he was in Madrid. But then I remembered that time I pitched a big screaming/crying/jumping-up-and-down fit in the airport and felt the need to apologize to the gate agent an hour later for my behavior when a nosy passenger started harassing me, trying to force me into telling her what I did that required an apology…and I didn't want to be that person. So, I just wondered quietly to myself.

The train finally started moving and we eventually made it to the next stop. Gym Guy was off the train in seconds, and Mr. Peru jumped up, trying to grab him, saying, "We need to talk." There was a part of me that wanted to trail them, but I wanted to get home more than I wanted to witness any more drama.

Once they were off the train, things went back to normal on the train. Well, sort of normal. At one point, the girl standing next to me handed me her cell phone and asked me to listen to her voice mail and tell her the number that was left on it. Thanks to my superior listening skills, I managed to decipher the digits. Then, as I finished that task, I overhead some crazy guy talking to someone else near the exit. I didn't want to look in their direction fearing that I might fall instantly and madly in love with him. What was Romeo saying? "There sure are a bunch of beautiful white women on this train. Look at that white woman. She's beautiful. See all these beautiful white women. I like white women. I like beautiful white women. She's beautiful. Look at that beautiful white woman."

After hearing this for entirely too long, the crazy guy got off the train. I then felt it was safe to look over and saw (as I suspected) that he was a crazy, dirty, homeless man. Then I looked over to see to whom he was talking. She was a regular-looking Asian woman. Boy was I wrong about there being any possible friendship between those two. Okay, so I suppose a normal-looking Asian woman COULD be friends with a crazy homeless man who clearly likes white woman over other ethnicities, but it really doesn't seem likely.

And then, after all of that…the train made it to my stop. I scrambled off the train, went home, changed shoes, and headed to a faux baby shower. What a ride!

And what did I learn? Well, I learned my favorite new word that may be on par with, if not better than, "asshat", and that's….."shitbag".