Hungry? Wait Until You Get Off Muni!

Jen arrived at the office this morning with a story about a man who was eating on the N Judah. He was dipping his head into the bag and coming up with mouthfuls of cornflakes. Some might laud this as a sanitary way of eating on the bus. After all, the bus germs get on your hands, not your mouth. (Unless you put your mouth on the rail as I've seen people do.) Jen & her fellow N Judah passengers had to watch this guy, dipping his face in and out of his bag as cornflake detritus fell on his belly, the seat and the floor. It stuck to his wet jowls. And he chewed with his mouth open.

It reminded me of an episode I witnessed on Tuesday evening. A woman passed through the turnstyles at Montgomery eating a green apple. The station agent called out, "No eating on Muni." Apple eater shot her a dirty look, bit defiantly into her apple and headed for the stairs.

Next, the agent is on the p.a. "No eating on Muni. Please put that apple away!"

Still, Apple Eater is chewing away on this massive green apple. I'm thinking about that guy in Florida who was tasered for asking John Kerry too many questions. Who knows what Apple Eater is thinking.

The M arrives and A.E., still chewing on the fruit, steps on. A security guard follows, honing in on A.E. as the train heads toward Powell. Perhaps we'll never know if the security guy let A.E. go, or if he tasered her, or if she gave him a bite of her apple and they discussed creation myths like a subterranean Adam & Eve.

Here's the thing. There are many reasons that you shouldn't eat on public transportation. The bureaucrats would probably cite cleanup costs or some obscure health code violation.

For me, though, it's simple. I don't want to watch you eat while I'm commuting. I don't need to see you chew. I don't want to step on your cornflake crumbs. I don't want to site on your discarded apple core. And a sure as hell don't want to be held up while you argue with the driver or the security guard about eating on Muni. Just don't do it. It's gross.

In election news - they're going to be counting ballots for days. I still hope that this stupid Prop A goes down. How come all the supposed progressives think that this is good? You want to be a progressive? Pressure your elected officials to make a stand about more than slogans and "free" Muni improvements. SFist has an interesting take on all this.


Today's Stats:
Wait time: 5 minutes
Ride time: 18 minutes.
Muni Reading: New Yorker - The Mitt Romney article. Man that guy bugs me.
Irritation level: Very low. My favorite driver made his usual announcements - "Through no fault of my own, traffic is heavy in the tunnel." and "The computer will not open the doors until we have arrived at the proper place on the platform." It makes me happy to hear this. It also makes me happy to parse his voice. Today, I hit on this: A mix between Truman Capote and R&B impresario Johnny Otis.