Know why this is happening? Because human beings are idiots. We refuse to look at the bigger picture. About six years ago, I don’t know what caused it, or whose idea it was, but the riders of San Francisco’s Municipal Railroad (MUNI) have lost sight of that bigger picture. If one examines the name, “Municipal Railroad,” means “of the city” the city’s transportation system. Citizens of the city should care about their city. They’re Citizens.

Beginning five years ago, they started to lose sight of this fact:

They began entering buses through the rear doors.

I suppose this disregard could have been based upon stupidity, given that we’re all idiots (ask Mother), some of the populace transferring rules from the trains (J, K, L, M, N lines) to the inner city’s bus-lines. On the trains, because the trains are frequently four or five carriages long, people with monthly passes may enter a train from any door rear of the lead car’s operator. So, I can see where there might have been some confusion. Five or ten years back.

But in the last five years, the incidents of pedestrians broaching the sanctity of the paid innards of the buses has QUINTUPLED. This isn’t ignorance. This isn’t “I didn’t know.” This is not, “The driver told me to disregard that sign right there that says, “Boarding MUNI through the rear doors is punishable by a fine.”

This is people trying to save money, by avoiding paying the fare.

This is people “messing with the system.

This is ignorant people undermining their own city, betraying everyone who HAS PAID their fare (fair share). This is hurting every effort ever made to be civilized. I’m telling you, it’s the beginning of anarchy.

This is the beginning of the end of “Civilization.”

***

Frankly, I’m getting tired of having the same old thoughts, the same old frustrations, the same old resentments. Why can’t everyone just follow the rules?

What I hate the most is, all that stuff I learned in grammar school about politeness in public, and etiquette are thrown out the window when it comes to MUNI.

In theory, you pay your fare, you find a seat, and you get to where you’re going.

The bus arrives, relatively empty. Heck, you can see that there are fifty or sixty empty seats in the rear of the bus. You file onto the bus from the front, show your pass, but by the time you reach the rear of the bus, those sixty seats are no longer empty. Why?

Sixty people waited at the two rear doors for someone to exit, and all sixty of those “citizens” entered through the rear, and took the seat I wanted. I only wanted one. I PAID FOR ONE. So, I have to stand.

Every day, I make the same notations. I grump and fret because MUNI loses $1.50 for every one of those sixty people. I curse mankind. I scowl at anyone who sat before me. I build resentments. And it’s just public transportation.

AND I HAVE TO STAND.

And this happens every day. No wonder we have a term called “going postal.” How about, “going bussal”? It could happen. Just wait and see.

Oh, not me. I’m too civilized. No, really. I pay the fare. I realize that by not paying the fare, they’re just raising them. I’m not violent. No. They just slap me in the face every time they board through the rear, saying, “I’m better than you, honkey (gringo), see, and I got your seat, too.” Why should that upset me?

I’d like to explain it to them. There really IS a correlation between paying the fare and undercutting the city. I mean, the busses, running on electricity, do experience wear. The unwashed, uneducated, uncaring masses (i.e., those who board buses from the rear), don’t have the intellect to understand such a cause and effect relationship. They just say, “It don’t make no never mind. I’m just one more passenger.”

Not so. But, how does one inform people who may very well have dropped out of grammar school? Were they better informed, they’d pay the fare. They wouldn’t insult me as they steal onto the bus ahead of me and take my seat.

But they’re idiots.

We’re idiots.

Look what we’ve done to our Mother!