Bus Report #911

This morning, the fog was as thick as cotton batting. I walked out into the dark, heavy morning, wishing for my winter coat. Our wonderful San Francisco fog, our Karl, wrapped itself around the streetlights and hovered over my neighborhood while I waited in the grey dark for the bus.

It was so foggy that I did not notice the bus coming, until it was right in front of the bus stop. It emerged from out of the fog as if in a dream, or some sort of 1940s noir film.

The fog only grew heavier and thicker as we wound our way up through the Haight to the high point of Clayton. For a few blocks, visibility was very, very bad. It was a wonder the driver was able to see anything, let alone stop for people waiting. Usually, I can see downtown and the entire expanse of the city and part of the bay out of the left-hand side window, but today, nothing. Not even the red neon light from the big Market Street Safeway sign.

The giant genie got on and sat down in his usual spot, commenced his grooming. Straight comb, and then mustache balm, and then lotion, and then dandy brush.

Down in the Castro, a man stood on the corner by Zapata, shouting and waving a long stick in the air. The sight of the bus seemed to anger him even further, and he stomped toward us, shaking the stick (a broomstick at closer inspection) at us.

In Potrero, it was already growing sunny but as I walked to work from the bus I could feel the last vestiges of the cool fog, of the dark, still clinging to my jacket for just a few minutes more.