I'm going to preface this post by saying that I am very grateful to be fully mobile and physically healthy, and grateful to have a place to live, and I realize that sometimes all it takes is a piece of bad luck or a step into the wrong place at the wrong time for one's situation in life to turn horribly for the worse.
And also, as we've established, I don't judge.
But here is a peeve of mine. I do not like it when I pay for a product or service, only to have that product or service subsequently offered to others for free, at which point I am basically prevented from using the product or service as it is intended and/or in the form that was at least tacitly offered along with its purchase. I am, e.g., still mildly bitter about UC San Diego's policy of granting a 2-week or longer "grace period" on parking at the start of some quarters, during which diligently pre-paying drivers would arrive on campus only to find every single legitimate goddamn parking space from Torrey Pines Road to University Towne Centre [sic] taken up by non-permit-bearing vehicles, so that one would become so desperate to reach Phonetics 210 or Goethe's Influence on Kafka's Reading of Thomas Mann's Mario and the Magician or whateverthefuck other class reasonably close to on time that one would finally just park anywhere, only to then receive a parking ticket that cost half as much as the permit for the entire quarter, and you know they're not gonna let you check out a library book or get your goddamn diploma if you've got fines on your record, and so then you're fucking screwed and that, my friends, is how they get you, and you get so worked up you can't even keep your person and tenses straight when you write about it.
And so we come to "Spare the Air" days here in San Francisco. For you non-Bay Areans, typically during the summer on days when it reaches scorching, lower-80s type temps, San Francisco and surrounding regions will declare a Spare the Air day where all public transportation is free. I can always tell when it's a Spare the Air day because the buses will be a lot more crowded, late, and annoying than usual. Well, you might say, then clearly this initiative works: on days when it is hot and the air quality is poor, more people take public transportation. An ingenious example of green problem solving!
Except it's not. I can guarantee you that no one who is spending $350/month to park their car downtown is leaving that sucker in the garage in Palo Alto and taking Caltrain + MUNI to work in the city just because it's free for the day. If that were the case, then maybe they'd call it Leave Your Tacky Lexus at Home day. No, on Spare the Air days, people who normally wouldn't get on the bus think, hey! it's hot and I want to go somewhere, so I am going to take the bus because what the hell, it's free! It should be called Go Somewhere Random You Wouldn't Normally Pay $1.50 to Go day.
On Thursday I did not know yet that it was a free day, and as I was walking to the bus stop after work I saw my bus going by and thought, damn, I just missed it. But then another was right on its heels, and I thought, oh, it's a lucky going-home-timing day after all! Little did I know.
Heading home, I get on at the second or third stop of the route, so I got a seat as I usually do. Within two more stops, though, the vehicle was packed. Then we stopped to let on someone in a wheelchair. Except then neither one of the two potential wheelchair restraints was working. Meanwhile, more and more able-bodied people got on, even though there was less room than usual because a couple of benches were flipped up to expose the wheelchair restraints, and eventually the poor guy in the chair had to get off anyway, because the driver refused to take him if the restraints didn't work. And then a few stops later there was a guy on a scooter chair. And he was pissed already about the full buses, and waving his cell phone around and shouting about how the driver had to let him on, and how he already had people on the phone about it, and then the driver was trying to explain to him that it was a safety issue and the restraints were not working, and finally the driver just gave in to the guy, which also involved maneuvering the bus around a police car that was parked in the bus lane so the bus could get close enough to the curb, and naturally none of this was taking any time whatsoever. But honestly? At that point I still just felt lucky to have a seat and be able to walk when I want to.
And then the very very dirty, smelly guy crammed himself right next to where I was sitting, with his crotch at the level, and within a few inches, of my nose. And the 15 or so further minutes it took for me to get home from there, wedged in next to this guy's crotch and unable to relocate, really almost sent me over the edge. Now, I know in theory that when you pay your $45/month for a bus pass, you are not being guaranteed a seat on any bus at any time, and certainly not a seat next to a freshly laundered person who smells fresh and clean like the meadow outside grandma's house. BUT C'MON, PEOPLE. Spare the air, my ass.
