I Know It Wasn't The 29 Sunset

I was walking down the street the other day and was shocked out of reverie by a passing bus. Those two metal poles that connect a bus to the overhead electrical wires bounced and clanged as they tend to do, and I immediately remembered something that I had temporarily blocked out; a night that I came ridiculously close to seeing this ridiculous life flash out and end.

While many people bitched about it, I heart the public transit in San Francisco. I was taking a film class at City College and was taking Muni from work to school, and then from school back home; the K Ingleside to be exact, down to Market where I could either walk or catch a number of options back up to the Haight.

So one night after class, I was standing at the stop beneath a large pedestrian walkway on Ocean, listening to music on my headphones per usual. There was no one else there, which is interesting as there were usually at least 2 or 3 other Muni enthusiasts waiting there, usually casting furtive glances my way as if their eyes were sending shy and twitchy messengers to ask if I was going to hurt them.

So alone, on Ocean Boulevard, deaf to all but (what I'm assuming was) T. Rex strutting along in my ears, and a bus that was not meant for me comes racing through. It was probably a 49 Van Ness or a 54 Felton (that was specifically for you Mercedes), but those funny metal antennae somehow bounced wrong or something, because suddenly all hell broke loose.

I heard that movie sound effect specific sound of wires snapping with a laser-like 'ping', and watched in slow motion as the wires which provided power to the electric busses came crashing down onto Ocean Avenue, sparking. I had a moment to realize that this is probably where I'm going to die, on a shitty section of a shitty street in a fairly lame part of San Francisco. I wasn't going to stroke out on blow and rough sex as my 3rd grade teacher had predicted.

I had enough sense, by the way, to cover my head with my hands. Because apparently that's how helpful my fight or flight instincts are, stand there like a friggin' moron and cover your useless head.

Everything settled down fairly quickly, and I stood there with what I assume was a gaping mouth and the sort of eyes you see on a vet that's been in the shit. A rather rotund female driver came out of the bus that had stopped after causing all of this destruction. She saw me standing there and asked, "Did another bus come through here and do this?"

I just looked at her with those shell shocked eyes and yelled, "No! You did this! You drove through, and all of a sudden there's sparking electrical wires all around me and all over the road!" She got back in to the bus and closed the door.

For the life of me, I cannot remember how I got home that night. I must have walked down to the BART station, I don't know. But ever since then, there's been a little twitch in my system, a small urge to cover my head with my hands, when I hear those bus poles jump on the line.


Zeptember song of the day: In My Time Of Dying