The Idiot Parade on San Francisco`s Muni System

Ever been stuck in an “idiot parade?”
Don’t know what that is? Well let me educate you, so you can ID one the next time you’re trying to get your errands done in The World, and the Idiot Parade gets in your way.
So I live in San Francisco. SF, being a lousy place to own and use a car (parking, tickets, taxes, crap) I take the Muni (not to be confused with BART or the Cable Car) to get to downtown. Theoretically it SHOULD be a great way to get downtown fast, and easy.
But no. I have to get on with the Assorted Idiots, Dreck, and Morons that seem to consume the air, water, sewage system, and food of this small burg.
So I get on. Now, it’s a dollar and a quarter to get on. Trying to evade the fare is a fool’s game because EVENTUALLY you’ll get caught. Still, people try, and this fair day we had an unusual assortment of morons, pot smoking punk-ass kids and homeless refugees, trying to bullshit the driver with expired transfers. (Note to losers: steal the transfer and make a color copy at Kinkos if you want this to work. Of course this will cost you as much as just paying the F*CKING FARE, but hey!)


So the rest of us have to endure: losers trying to get out of the fare, and overly aggressive Muni drivers fighting back. I sentence for Rusty the Bailiff to shoot you motherfuckers so I CAN JUST GET TO THE SAFEWAY ON MARKET!
The idiot parade begins.
Finally we go on our journey. Now, it’s crowded, yes, mass transit gets like that. I have the misfortune of being next to Mr. “I’m the F*cking Duke of York and I have 10,000 Men But Still Take Mass Transit Anyway, Asshole” pushing me with his fucking bag. I indicate politely that it’s a very crowded Muni, we can’t all fit as is, would he please STOP PUSHING ME WITH THE BAG?
Duke of York gives me the “I’m better than you because I’m like, from the east coast, or something look” and makes a little huffy sound as he turns away.
I see we found a parade marshall.
Now, my instinct is to take his oversized bag and shove it so far down his throat he’ll poop polymers for a week, but I don’t need to. You see, I’m on the Idiot Muni, and Big Angry Member of the Communi-tay steps up. He tells Duke of York to “stop being a beotch.”
We’re in lower Haight. We’re already getting into it? Fuck me. Fuck going to the store.
Duke and Communi-tay get verbal, and then the driver has to pipe in. ARGH! I just wanted to go to the frakking Safeway and cash in on deals with my club card. I shoulda just paid the “idiot convenience” tax at the corner store. WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!!!!!!
Mercifully, we stop at the corner where I can go to Safeway. I say a prayer to Jesus, and I toss in an e-prop to the other deities, even SpongeBob, just to cover my ass. I’m off the Muni. I can make my purchases at Safeway, go home , have my dinner in peace, and let the rest of the empire collapse.
Oh no.
The 2nd Act of the Idiot Parade needs to take hold. In this case, the Express Lane.
Now, you have to understand that Safeway has spent decades figuring out how to make it FUCKING OBVIOUS the Express Lane is for 15 items or less. That doesn’t mean 15 items of “huge crap”, and it doesn’t mean “15 ways to mess with the clerk when you’re too stupid to count, add, subtract, or live amongst the higher-evolved humans.”
Guess which line I ended up in.
Yeah.
So the line is going slow as is, because every person ahead has to pay in exact change, because they’re broke or whatever, fine. But then we get another member of the Communi-tay mouthing off about “how slow” the line is.
News flash, parader, go to the line behind the guy buying 4 cases of beer, 4 pizzas, 6 bags of chips and a shitload of God Knows What Else in that overflowing cart of his. THEN bitch about how fucking slow we’re going!
But I didn’t SAY that, I just THOUGHT it. Big mistake.
So finally, Mr. Bitcher gets to the head of the line. He has like, 3 things to buy. But he can’t just pay for them. See, first he has to make a speech about how “slow the line is.”
When the patient clerk tries to move him along and get him on his way, ringing up his purchases so he can GET THE HECK OUTTA THE STORE like he allegedly wants, that’s no longer good enough. You see, Mr. Communi-tay is now upset that he’s being treated like he wanted (i.e. get the heck out of the store fast enough) and is now accusing the overworked, shittly paid clerk of being….yes! you guessed it! a RACIST.
At this point I eyed the other lines, but it was no good. I was too far into mine to get out and get into another. I was fucked. So was everyone else in the line. We had to listen to some dumb-ass bitch BECAUSE THEY WERE CHECKING HIS THREE FUCKING ITEMS THROUGH TOO FAST. The same guy who was bitching about the line being too slow!
Amazing.
Now, you’d think this would be enough. Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no.
Idiot’s bank card didn’t work.
Then he didn’t have enough money. For THREE ITEMS!
So he asked if he could go to an ATM. News Flash, Einstein: you can use your ATM card at the check-stand. Mr. Bitcher didn’t like that answer. Apparently on Mars they don’t have such devices. Dude, I’ll PAY FOR YOUR STUFF IN CASH TO MOVE IT ALONG!
Bitch, bitch, bitch. More time wasted. Is it worth the money saved to have the urge to kill?
FINALLY, Communi-tay gets through the line. Now he’s trying to be our buds. Get out of my way so I can take me 3 things home. And thank Jesus for gun control, otherwise there’d be all sorts of justified homicides in SF.
I get out. I make a nice comment to the poor checker chick and sympathize with her plight. She appreciates it. I look forward to a safe Muni ride home. No more BS. Just a quiet evening at home with a nice dinner, a couple o’ beers, and a DVD!
HA!
The idiot parade got on board the return trip in the guise of Mr. and Mrs. Yuppie Scum and their kids, Zutroy the Elder and Hortense the Pretentious. I guess Yuppie DotCom Scum thought they’d run around with the peasants on Muni rather than scratch the Navigator on the trip to the park. But of course, they didn’t wanna pay.
Yes, you heard me right. Just like the dope-smokin’ hippies who tried to ‘bilk’ the Man out of a dollar twenty five, these fucks walked on past the driver and didn’t pay!
Better yet, when confronted with the fact they didn’t pay, Yuppie Dad was indignant about how “they had kids’ and shit like that.
Word to the wise, Mr. DotComYuppieShitheadFromTheEastCoastWhoLooksAtUsNativesLikeAPackofFuckingCowboysandIndiansAnd ShowsContemptAsSuchBecauseWeDon’tSuckDownSeltzerWaterOrPastramiLikeYouDidonThe”good”Coast:
F
F*CK YOU!
F*ck you and your over priced brood for thinking you can take your overpriced asses and your two goddamned strollers on the Muni and NOT FREAKING PAY.
At least, that’s what I wanted to say. But at this point, I just wanted to fucking go home. And I started to realize in the city, a large Grolsch wasn’t enough to sedate me after this idiot parade.
I got off at a stop far sooner than I should have and walked home. I had pride. Fuck being on the same Muni as hippies, homeless, the Communi-tay, Mr. Yuppie Fuck, and the rest. The air was cool and clear and life was gonna be fine.
Then I got home and found a parking ticket in the mailbox. Too bad I don’t own a car. But that’s another Idiot Parade for another time.

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