Marcia's Column #4

I have to apologize for not writing anything for last week, it was combo of not getting back from San Diego until 3:30am on Monday morning and having a really busy week at work. . . I'll try and write another one sometime this week to make up for it (if Kaz is willing to alter the schedule for me) . . . no promises though

So by now, if you've read any of my other posts you know that i am (healthy, i think) obsessed with Andy Pettitte. Opening week of baseball season, i got super excited and looked up the schedules of when either the Yankees or the Padres would be in SF or Oakland. I remembered that the Yankees were playing in Oakland this weekend, but didn't really make plans to see a game, etc. During bar #1 of the pub crawl i did on sat night, the Yankees/ A's game was on and thought there was a decent chance Pettitte was pitching the next day (i knew that he hadn't pitching either of the last 2 games). Around bar #3 on the pub crawl, I decided that i should in fact text Kaz and make him figure out if Pettitte was pitching Sunday or not (I'm sure he loved this considering he was at home writing a paper and I was out being a drunk asshole). After leaving bar #5 i was sufficiently drunk to the point where i had completely forgotten about the game and completely focused on making it to Bob's 24 hour donut shop, but right then i got a call from Kaz that Pettitte was pitching! YES! and my friend Erin even said she'd want to go with me

I was worried that this would be one of those instances when everyone thinks things like this are a good idea when they're drunk and then the next morning, totally punk out (i am always the loser who was serious and gets up early to get ready and then finds out that everyone else is still sleeping). Well, me and Erin actually managed to wake up and buy Justin Timberlake tickets, get ready, head to nick's crispy tacos, and head to the game. . .

On the way over, we got to hear a story from Erin's friend about this guy she knew who was rushing to get on the BART and not paying attention, who sat down in puddle of someelse's urine. . . this made me glad we were driving. After a LONG drive, because of horrible traffic caused by a concurrent A's and Warriors game, we arrived.

Maybe it was a mistake to drive an hour to a game we didn't have tickets to, but i felt like A's tickets weren't very hard to get, though I may have underestimated how much of a draw the Yankees coming to town is. We suspected that the game might be sold out, but figured if they were that we'd just head up to the BART ramp and look for scalpers. We thought it might be a bad sign when the people coming from the BART ramp were asking us if we had extra tickets, but always the eternal optimist, i was convinced that i would get tickets. i mean, it is my destiny to see Andy Pettitte, right? WRONG. when we got up there, there was only one scalper and he was selling tickets for $100 each. even, i don't like Pettitte that much, plus, I'm not a drug dealer. . . who carries $200 cash around with them? it was then that i realized that i would not be seeing Andy Pettitte pitch, so i took my nick's crispy tacos, which i was still waiting to eat, and hopped on BART to head back to SF. It was once I got on BART that i started thinking about my friend's theory on public transportation in the bay area. . .

His theory is that BART and the MUNI buses smell, but that CalTrain and the MUNI metro are cleaner. He also says that he doesn't sit on the BART, because the smell travels with you. (This reminded me of that Seinfeld when Jerry can't get the smell out of his car and everyone who goes in it smells). I have always noticed that the buses in SF gross me out a lot more than the metro, but hadn't been on BART all that much. The combo of hearing about a guy sitting in a puddle of urine and riding the BART for the second time ever, made me think more about this phenomena. After checking my seat multiple times for urine, I decided to actually sit down, though i was worried about carrying BART smell with me for the rest of the day, especially getting in stuck in my hair. Is that how it works, like when you get smoke smell stuck in your hair after going out? I'm going to have to ask my friend about the intricacies of "catching the BART smell".

Anyway, my theory is that BART smells worse than the MUNI metro or the CalTrain because of the type of seating. BART seats are made out of like normal cloth and look relatively absorbent, whereas CalTrain and MUNI have seats that are basically made of plastic. Less absorbent = less smell retained. The real mystery is the MUNI buses. Why would these be any smellier than the MUNI metro? The seats are made of the same material(though the brown seats on the buses don't exactly make it look more appealing), so they shouldn't absorb the smell anymore than the metro seats do. I also thought it might be the type of people who ride the buses, but why would bus people be smellier than metro people, there is no inherent reason i can think of . . . i don't get it. Chalk it up as one of life's great mysteries I guess.