Brownie-town on the 49

brownie

I ride the 49 every day to get home, and so do a lot of terrible teenagers (redundant?) who attend Balboa Galileo High School on Van Ness and Bay. At best, they’re usually just screaming about this, that and the other, possibly hoping their volume will increase their level of importance on the bus. There’s often a non-teenage screamer on the bus and a vivid assortment of rude, pleasant, happy, friendly and too-friendly people also, just to add some color to my little cross-town line.

Because the 49 does cross town, I try to understand when it’s mildly gross. A bag of smashed chips at your feet here, a little pile of sunflower seeds there. But I draw the line at what looks like real effort to get moist foodstuffs caked on the bus. For example, someone had to TRY to get this brownie on the window. Someone had to take it out of their bag, out of its wrapper, then purposefully smear it on the window in such a way that it sticks.

I take it personally also because this happened to be next to my favorite seat on the bus (along that single-seat row, on the left, in the back). Maybe tomorrow I’ll find a plate of eggs or something.

Sure that’s a brownie? Send us your tales of suspicious items found on the bus, or any other worthy tales.

Photo by Flickr user Mitsooko

The photo above was taken by the author and pertains to the incident mentioned in this post. It arrived at MDHQ a tad late. Apologies.

13 comments

  • Balboa is out on Cayuga. Van Ness & Bay is Galileo HS, OJ’s alma mater.

  • D’oh, apologies. I meant to bag on the teenagers of GALILEO High School.

  • If you bag on Galileo kids, you’re bagging on me too.

  • Laura

    I’m glad they changed the picture because it was making me mighty hungry! The actual picture makes my stomach feel queasy.

  • omg Tara first of all I’m glad you snapped a picture but now that I see the brownie in question, I am really, really, grossed out. Still, awesome find.

    • It’s a great pic, isn’t it? It also seems physically impossible for it to be sticking straight up like that on a moving bus, but there you go.

  • AND THEN!

    This french fry is in the same seat on the same line (though probably not the same coach). Someone is fucking with me, definitely.

  • “Eating and drinking are not allowed on transit vehicles.” I sometimes wish there were also a screening process for teenagers. No offense, WWT. You’re one of the few good ones.

    • eugenia

      Ok, ok, I have to make a confession. The other day I was on the 1-Califiornia, carrying this delightful drink of iced green tea that had a scoop of blood orange sorbet in it (yes, this is an overpriced drinks for food nerds, purchased from the Ferry Building – where else?). I was covertly stirring my drink trying to get a spoonful of sorbet from it before it all melted. Then a glop of sorbet fell onto the floor!

      I freaked out because I was also wearing my Muni Diaries button, you know, ruining my street cred and everything by eating and then spilling on the bus. So I tore up some newspapers and wiped it up diligently. That 1×1 area of the floor on that bus has never been this clean. The ladies next to me thought I was out of my mind.

      Anyway my point is, ahem, it’s not just the teenagers who drop food on the bus.

      • Kudos for being brave enough to admit it, Eugenia. And kudos for cleaning up after yourself, especially with something…moist.

        I’d still argue that the mark of the self-entitled and self-absorbed is not cleaning after yourself. It’s not so much the fact that stuff gets dropped on the bus, it’s more like “I’m gonna fuckin dirty the hell out of this bus because I don’t fuckin’ care and I’m fuckin’ badass like that, motherfuckers! You can’t tell me what to do!”

        That’s a really rough translation, of course.

  • I know exactly of those rowdy teenagers you speak of that ride the 49 down Van Ness. I used to ride the 49 around 4 in the afternoon during the week and HATE my commute. Those kids were scary. And there were always a bunch of them. They pretty much took over the entire bus and on many occasions would start fights with one another.

    This one time on my way to work on this same line, a fight broke out in the back of the bus involving the whole group of kids. They were shoving and pushing each other into non-high school Muni riders. It was pretty scary and do you think the Muni driver stopped or blinked an eye? Nope. All of us riders were pretty much at the mercy of these kids and they knew it.

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