People Worth Staring At

I don't think ugly is really that proper of a word to describe people, so I'll try to pick another. How about "interesting?"

The people in San Francisco are really interesting. They're textured. They're different. They're like hunks of drift-wood, or carrots that kind of have faces, or used furniture that "has a lot of character." The people in San Francisco have a whole lot of character. When I was in college back at Whitman, I was used to seeing hoards of young, attractive people every day. But if I can lob a criticism at my college friends and classmates, it's that they usually didn't have mohawk pony-tails, toothless mouths that collapsed on themselves, or unexplained bald spots and facial hair. In short, they were very nice, smart, attractive people, but they weren't ugly-- err, interesting-- so they weren't worth staring at.

In San Francisco you can stare at people. The people cry out to be stared at. And listened to. And there's no place to do it like on public transportation. I thought that people were baring all in the malls, but those people were boring-as-spackle by comparison. One of the great benefits of being in an English-speaking country again is that I can eavesdrop until my ears bleed. Please allow me to take a page from the great website, Overheard In New York as I give you...

Overheard on Muni!

Real Estate Mogul: She a moose hunter and she pro-life. How can you be a moose hunter and be pro-life? Can't have an abortion but you can kill a moose. It don't make sense!

Angry white guy: (presumably after he was pushed) The f*ck is your problem? I'm not a human dummy!
Real Estate Mogul: Tell 'em, man!
Angry white guy: (Not listening) We're not in f*cking China!

Teen girl 1: You know what I hate even more?
Teen girl 2: (Trying to be helpful) The way you are now?
Teen girl 1: What? No...
Teen girl 2: (shrugs)

Teen girl 2: You know what you should do? Just take a break and have a month where you don't have sex with everyone.
Teen girl 1: I don't really do that now...
Teen girl 2: Okay, then have a month where you do have sex with everyone and then take a break!

San Francisco public transit, ladies and gentlemen. Home to the most interesting people in the world.

Comments

Andrea B. (Red Loper) said…
This is my favorite OINY quote from a few years ago. Mostly because it involves a cemetery.

Guy: That's a really old graveyard. They have tombstones going back to the 1600s.

Girl: I dont understand. How is that possible?

Guy: It's an old church. People were buried there a long time ago.

Girl: Yeah, but wasn't our country made around the 1770s?

Guy: Yes, but there were colonists here from France, England and Spain before that.

Girl: So they brought their dead relatives over here to bury them?
2:13 AM
Anonymous said…
God that's some mighty fine evesdropping you got there. I like the teenager girl's ideas of how to plan a month. I'd like to hire her as an event organiser. I think she could plan a really dynamic dinner party.

-Fayette
(where the evesdropping is poo because everyone speaks Hindi and all I understand is "teak-A" which means "okay" and isn't very revealing.)
4:31 AM
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