Thursday, July 31, 2008

Bus Report #355

MUNI and Personal Hygiene, an exploration.

This morning on the 22, a very stinky man sat behind me. He had a backpack and several sacks of cans and bottles. He was quite... fragrant, if you know what I mean.

Lavender hat guy sat a couple rows ahead of me. As usual, his strange odor, part unwashed body, part earthy spice, part metallic, wafted back towards me.
I opened the window.

At 16th and Valencia the guy with the creepy red beard got on. He had shaved a few days ago, but the beard is already growing back. He had a cup of coffee and the smell of the coffee masked the other odors for a while.

A large man got on at Shotwell. He stood in the stepwell, staring at his reflection in the mirror above the doorway.
He took a comb out of his pocket and started to groom his almost non-existent mustache. He also combed a non-existent beard. Strange.

A pair of teenage girls got on and walked by me on their way to the back of the bus. They smelled as though they had emptied an entire bottle of fruity perfume on themselves before leaving the house.


And, unrelated:
A more-or-less normal-looking guy sat across from me on the 38. Nice suit, nice tie (purple!), lap full of legal pads and a paper lunch sack. He was talking to himself, but not in an obvious way.
It was weird.
Whenever I notice people talking to themselves in the bus, I always wonder if I do it, too. So far I don't think I do.

2 Comments:

Blogger TK said...

The advent of Bluetooth headsets has made it more difficult to tell who's crazy and who's on the phone. A while back, some woman on the street looked directly at me and said, "OK then, I'll see you later." I was about to say "What?" and then she turned and I saw the little ear thingy.

11:37 AM  
Blogger Rachel said...

Yeah, I agree completely!
But this dude... was definitely talking to himself. Complete with little smiles and slight nods of his head.

12:25 PM  

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