Today’s installment of our five-part look back on our first year is Eugenia’s favorite diary: “I like it because we see mentally disturbed people on the bus and on the street all the time, and the way we react to them is always so awkward. It feels like nothing you do is right or compassionate, and the way this guy accused the woman of stealing his wallet just really showed the kind of fear that can make you act really…ugly.” Tomorrow we’ll be running Tara’s favorite diary of the year.

Visual Rapists, Thieves, and Prada, by Joe (Originally posted February 19, 2009)

So I’m riding the 6, heading outbound, up Haight Street when i hear this woman having a conversation. She’s young, well-dressed and wearing a pair of dark dark sunglasses. And at first she’s just talking to herself, quietly, saying things like, “I know who you are, I know who you are.” She’s repeating it over and over, rocking from side to side while doing so.

I notice peeps are starting to look around, trying to figure out who she’s talking to, maybe it’s them, maybe it’s herself, it’s tough to say because of those dark glasses. It’s then that the bus makes a stop at Divisadero and a few passengers get on. This guy in a blue button up and navy pants sits in the open seat next to the woman. I see everybody kind of look around at each other, knowing this guy just stepped on a land mine.

The bus driver closes the door and with one big jerk the bus chugs up the hill.

“I know who you are, I know who you are. ” The woman starts rocking again, but this time she turns the guy in the blue shirt and says, “Quit looking at me.” The guy looks puzzled. “What,” he says. “Quit looking at me, you think you know me? I know who you are, I know who you are,” she says.

Then the woman shifts in her seat and starts screaming at the top of her lungs, “Visual Rapist! Visual Rapist! Stop looking at me Visual Rapists!”

Damn son, I’m thinking, this is nuts. But then it becomes that thing you can’t turn away from, and soon everyone on the bus is looking at this woman. The more people look, the more she screams. And in the middle of this, the guy sitting next to her turns over and says, “Can you please stop bumping me.” Dude just turned hit the turbo boost because now she’s in his face screaming at him, saying things like, she’s going to beat his ass, saying how, these are PRADA sunglasses she’s wearing. PRADA! That she needs no man to take care of her, that these sun glasses are PRADA!

Dude in the blue shirt doesn’t know what to do so he looks for an exit, he stands up and tries to move away but as he does so, there’s something wrong. The guy reaches for his wallet but it’s not there. “You stole my wallet,” he says. “Give me my wallet.”

“I didn’t steal your wallet,” she says. PRADA!, she says. ” I don’t need your money. These are P-R-A-D-A!”

At this point, the driver pulled the bus over and everyone is at a standstill. If this was a western showdown, I’d bet on the woman.

Then the guy reaches into his pocket and pulls out a bic pen. It still has the top on, and he says, “Give me my wallet or I’ll fuckin cut you.”

Nobody knew what to do. Not even the driver, he was just sitting there, like the rest of us, looking through the rear view mirror kind of memorized by the whole mess.

It was then when another passenger says, “Your wallet’s right there. You dropped it when you got up.”

The man in the blue shirt picks up his wallet, and makes for the exit. “Back door,” he yells, “Back Door!”

“We’re not at the stop,” the driver says and then he fires up the bus and we start moving again up the hill.

Photo by Flickr user Darwin Bell

(Send us your Muni diaries, and who knows? One of them could get picked for next year’s favorites. Jeff’s favorite, which ran yesterday, can be found here.)

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