Fun times on MUNI

I ride the 33 Stanyan to class every Thursday evening. It's a 40 min ride that cuts through Haight, the Castro, Noe Valley, to Mission. A long loopy ride but it gets me within four blocks to campus.

On my way home last night, there were four guys sitting in the rear of the bus with heavy southern accents and large duffel bags (prob their life possessions) having a conversation about the opening of the first porn shop in some town in Alabama, the heart of the bible belt. "First the porn shop, then the tattoo parlors arrived. Next thing you know, there's a stripper joint!" Funny conversation to ease drop on. Then talk turned to the pot shop opening in Oakland and how one can take classes there and learn how to grow pot. "Everything you need to know from the lights, and the sprinkler system and the chemicals. Everything! Except the plants." And then one of the four started coughing. More people in the back started coughing. I thought this was some prank people were in on where the whole bus starts coughing away except me and then the film crew jumps on board and yells, "You're on Punk'ed!"

That was not the case. The scruffy, bearded guy in the group started cursing, and yelled "why'd you do that?" and "open the windows!" The air was hazy behind me when I turned around and I breathed in and it hits me. It felt like oven cleaner in my lungs but it might have been one of those smoke canisters the swat patrol throws in barricaded buildings to smoke people out. It was awful. You had to cough. Your lungs burned from the fumes. Everyone moved away from the back and a woman told the driver to pull over. He does and we all jumped out, coughing and spitting out saliva into the bushes. It could have been a scene from a film clip about the plague.

I was halfway home so I had to stick around the bus stop. Eventually half of us filed back in and crowded up in the front seats, because the driver told us he had to stay on schedule and he would leave us there if we didn't get on. Muni bus rules, apparently.

Those four stayed on the bus and eventually got off at Haight. Figured they would be heading there with all the talk about porn and pot shops.

Even after I got home, spat a couple times, and drank a glass of soy milk (isn't that what you are supposed to do when poisoned?), it didn't help much. I hope my internal organs aren't permanently damaged.