Muni Memories #4

The 6 Parnassus

It was quite warm today. For an afternoon in mid-July, by San Francisco standards, it was blistering. At least 80 degrees (hush now). Riding the bus on a hot day always makes for an experience – most often a miserable one.

I had to go downtown for a meeting. Afterwards, I walked to Market Street to catch the next bus. I could see an F car several blocks up, taking its time. The F follows the Embarcadero along the bay from Fisherman’s Wharf before turning southwest through downtown on its way to Castro Street. On a day like today, at the height of tourist season, being so pokey, I knew it was going to be stuffed full of people. I wasn’t looking forward to crowding aboard.

But before the F reached me, a 6 pulled up. The 6, 7, and 71 all turn up Haight Street, but they follow the same route as the F to my stop. I don’t usually like taking the 6 because, for some reason that I cannot ascertain, annoying things seem more likely to happen on the 6 – loud-talking, gum-smacking kids misbehaving, stinky people who appear to be moments away from barfing, guns getting pulled out – stuff like that.

But the 6 was almost empty. I knew it wouldn’t be for long, but I stepped on board and took a seat on the shady side near the back. After just a few more stops, the bus was nearly full. A young woman wearing a large, blue plastic watch took the seat directly across from me, facing me and the rear of the bus. She was holding a white paper bag, from which she was pulling chunks of a pastry to nibble on, and clutching a purse printed with Claude Monet’s The Bank of the Seine.

Moments later, a small man with orange-tinted glasses took the seat across the aisle to her right, also facing the rear. With him was a very large dog with a very, very coarse orange coat of fur, and a very, very, very waggy tail. After clubbing everyone at the back of the bus with her tail, she hoisted herself up onto the seat next to her master. I thought about fleas, but decided she was probably cleaner than a lot of other people I rub up against on the bus every day.

He started talking to his dog, “That’s my good girl,” he began, then continued, “You’re a spoiled rotten mutt!” Then he began to sing, “Aye-yai-yaiyai!” (You know the tune, think Tejano).

Then he spotted the young woman’s blue watch. “Is that Spongebob Squarepants?” he asked in an excited tone.

She turned her head, but only to glance at him through her horn-rimmed glasses. Holding up her wrist, she answered, “No, it’s Bart Simpson,” with a smacking of her lips as she reached into her bag for more pastry.

“Oh,” he sounded disappointed. “Yeah, because I have like every Spongebob collectible you can get!”

She smiled, reached into her bag for another chunk of pastry, and turned her head away from him. At the same moment, a young guy at the front of the bus started shouting, “Does anyone have change for a dollar?”

The bus fell silent. “No one has change for a dollar?” he yelled. I took mental inventory of my right pocket. Yes, I have change for a dollar, I thought.

The driver let him on anyway, and he walked to the back of the bus and took the seat across the aisle to my left, facing the dog.

“Hey!” he said as soon as he saw the pooch.

“Hay is for horses! Buy grass, it’s cheaper,” the small man with the dog answered in as unjolly a tone as one can possibly say those words.

Undeterred, the fellow continued to strike up a conversation. “That’s a nice looking dog."

“Thank you,” answered the small man in orange glasses. “She’s a good girl.”

“What’s her name?”

“Astamascramiscrater.”

Following a momentary pause, “Oh.”

“Asta, for short,” the man added, then turned back to his conversation with the dog. “Asta, should we get off at the Haight, or Buena Vista?”

“I was just trying to decide the same thing!” the young fellow said. The man ignored him, now fully engrossed in dialogue with Astamascramiscrater.

The boy moved to a different seat as I pulled the cord for my stop.