still Pimpin' My Ride

More tales of rider rage from my special commute! Yesterday on my way home, I was sitting toward the front of the bus. The noise level was normal, a mixture of people talking to each other and people on their cell phones. Suddenly I heard a woman yelling, "WHY DON'T YOU JUST GET UP, GO TO THE BACK OF THE BUS, AND TALK TO YOUR FRIEND? WHY DO YOU HAVE TO YELL ACROSS THE BUS? IT'S BAD ENOUGH WHEN THE KIDS DO IT, BUT YOU'RE AN ADULT!"

Jarring.

Annoying.

Shaming.

Uncomfortable.

The yeller was a middle-aged white woman with short salt-n-pepper hair, wearing floral socks and Birkenstocks. She looked suspiciously like the "old lesbian" victim of my last "Pimp My Ride" tale, but I can't confirm that. The woman she was yelling at was Chinese and appeared to be more than 10 years her senior. I hadn't even noticed that the Chinese lady was yelling to her friend. Her conversation blended into the typical soundtrack for the interior of a city bus. I was immediately bothered by this outburst, because not only was it uncalled for, but the white lady was playing morality police.

There are no morals in riding public transit, and everyone should know that from the second they release their fare into the cash-sucking machine at the front of the bus. And making a scene while playing morality police is an even worse violation of Muni culture. Who made her boss? Who was she trying to impress? She got off the bus two stops after this outburst, proving her impulsive stupid bitchitude.

The Chinese lady didn't say anything. She didn't get up and move to a new seat. She just froze. I had a perfect view of the side of her head, and I was waiting excitedly for her to shoot something fierce back, "YOU SHUT UP, NO SEAT IN BACK!" or something more fiesty "YOU NO STEP TO ELDERLY." But she kept quiet, probably filled with a combination of rage and shame.

See, that's the thing with little, old Chinese ladies. They do yell across the bus to their friends. Some of them even clip their nails right there in the seat. And they carry pink plastic bags of super smelly fish. They don't notice the whole "personal space" thing either. These are cultrually appropriate acts in the Chinese community. It's more crowded in China, and the buses are a sardine can of necessity where anything goes.

In America, if someone so much as brushes against your iPod cord the wrong way, people feel that it's their responsibility to go postal. And that's not okay. I think that tolerance of other cultures and respect for other riders should be mandatory for anyone who rides Muni. And sometimes that's part of what sucks about it, because you have to deal with teenage culture (yelling, acting tough, intimidating other passengers) and homeless culture (smellyness, panhandling, trashbags) and worst of all, dog-owner culture (dirty dog butthole touching the seats). These things apart can wear on anyone's nerves, but together they create the wonderful, torturous, delightfully amusing Muni culture. It's totally worth the $45-a-month cover charge.