Bus Report #438

This weekend was full of public transit of all sorts.
Saturday - 28 towards Fort Mason, on my way to Renegade Craft Fair. Lots of out of towners going to the fog-shrouded Golden Gate Bridge, almost all of them in sandals and thick, SF-branded fleeces.
After spending some time at the fair (and at the library book sale in Building C) I got back on the 28 headed home. A man wanted to get out near the Exploratorium but didn't signal in time, so he ended up getting out at the bridge stop to take a bus back.

Sunday - 38 Geary downtown, sat next to a teenage boy who spent the whole ride texting his girlfriend who was sitting in front of him. Near the Great American Music Hall, several toothless women and their equally down and out male companions waved at our bus, and danced in a strange, creepy and broken way until we pulled out of the stop.
From the 38 I took BART to MacArthur, a quick and easy trip. Passed by my favorite building in Oakland and the coffee warehouse.
From MacArthur BART I took an AC Transit bus to C's house. The driver was a bitch, acting like she had no idea where my stop was, not offering any help at all. Two AC Transit workers riding on the bus were no help, either, but I forgave them since they drove a different line.
"I can tell you anything you want to know about the 51, honey," one of them said.
After a fun afternoon at C's party it was back to BART for me. I heard a train coming and raced up the stairs, and a moment later I was on my way home.
Fifteen minutes later (whew!) I was spit back out onto Market Street downtown. Ran and caught a 38 Geary towards home.
And then, as if a vortex of weirdness opened up in the middle of our bus, a parade of very San Francisco types got on the bus.
- The Alien Donut Man - seeing him always gives me a bit of a start. He got on at the Larkin stop, and held on to the bars as tightly as he could. He looked like a bird trying to get a good hold on a perch. He eventually sat down, sitting on the edge of his seat, his back straight, his eyes fixed somewhere out the window.
- A toothless, sick looking blonde woman got on at the Polk-Van Ness stop. She could barely support the weight of the backpack she was carrying. She flopped down in the seat next to the Alien Donut Man. She smacked her lips and flipped her hair a few times, then slumped forward and didn't move for a while.
- A pair of slightly misguided trannies, dressed for lounge singing at a bad Polynesian buffet restaurant sometime in the late eighties. They had huge round glasses, long black hair with the life teased out of it, black jackets with shoulder pads and rhinestones scattered across their chests. I wanted to take them on one of those shows where they give you a wardrobe makeover, because they would have looked so much better dressed in a more modern way.
At Geary and Fillmore they got out. One of the girls somehow ended up with her sleeve off and her shirt open, and she fiddled with her (extremely padded) bra, much to the shock of a young man sitting in front of me, who stared at her with his mouth wide open.
- A man standing in the stairwell, trying to maneuver/protect a large sheet of posterboard covered with what looked like a huge, multi-generational family tree.