SPARE THE AIR

Spare The Air days, for those of you not zoiche to live in California, mean that the day is expected to be aza hot and wind-still that there may be rolling blackouts due to energy usage, and there is expected to be a dense layer of pollution hazing the sky over the Bay Area. We are so lucky.

On a spare the air day, the public is encouraged to ride public transit (which is free on most transit systems), take the trains to work instead of driving, turn off unnecessary appliances, keep energy usage as low as possible, and generally speaking co-operate for the common good.

Asthmatics may wish to have their inhalers handy.


WHAT GOES THROUGH PEOPLE'S MINDS ON A SPARE THE AIR DAY?

So glad you asked.

Here's a peek:

"Wow, the bus will be crowded today, I had better take my car in to work. Traffic should be easy; everybody'll be on the bus. Park just about anywhere! This is gonna be good. Weeeeeeee!"

Total gridlock by nine-thirty.

The street that runs past the office building normally jams up at the beginning of the evening commute. Today, by lunch time, it was solid. The air outside is rank with exhaust.

Yep, we're sparing tons of air. Leastways, we're hardly using any.

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On a related note, certain intersections in the downtown have a reek to them during the summer that defies description - a sickly, stale-sewer pongue that recalls both bodily wastes and drunkard's projectiles, while simultaneously prompting thoughts of depression, ennui, gloom, and the municipal dump after the rains, or low-tide at the salt flats.

California Street, from Drumm and California to Sansome and California: the smell at it's ripest. One of the oldest sewers in the Western Hemisphere is under this stretch, still sodden with the ablutory solids of the Roman legions, left behind during the last invasion shortly after the ice age. The Roman soldiers ate fava beans, did you know that?

Pine Street, Post Street, and Market Street: You know that nasty sinus infection you sometimes get? The one that happens when your system has been assaulted by mid-summer allergens for several weeks? The one with the solid green......... Yep, that one. This complicated street-junction brings back smell-borne echoes from that trip to Vancouver in the year when you first had the infection - it lasted for months. Ah, the memories! It was a wonderful year.

Battery and Market Streets: This one is good. At least there are enough street people sleeping near the bronze statue of the naked men and the mechanical device that you can't smell the sewer. That, and the choking exhausts of thousands of motorists heading towards the bridge, plus the fumes from Peet's Coffees and Teas, Noah's Bagels, Quiznos, and a cookie store - a creamy deliquescent aroma that on a good day clashes with the cheap perfume of wandering office workers, on a bad day has the density and appeal of three-day old pizza from Golden Boy. Pity you forgot to put it in the fridge. It's been making love to the flies on the kitchen counter, and has reached a stage of fruitfulness which is hard to imagine. You don't cook at home much, do you?

Drumm and Sacramento: No, you didn't suddenly and massively lose control, it really does smell like that. So stop surreptitiously feeling your rear-end, stand confidently erect, and inhale deep. Mmmm, the smell of childhood. Things just haven't been so intense since you started smoking.

Montgomery and Sacramento: This is where fermentation from the alleyways and black fumes from delivery trucks clash. Slightly chemical, with a room-note of cabbage-cider. A bass-note of black clay, fish, and if you're lucky, seaweed. Truly one of our more stellar nose-experiences. But you have to be there at the right time, as the afternoon windtunnel effect blows this away by tea-time. I would suggest an early lunch - have a Burrito at one of the tables in Commercial Alley. Now note how the beans and salsa clash with the rubbery rotteness.
You don't know how spoiled you are.

Battery and Pine Street: This is where Richard became a man. The troll-woman from Texas (I would've called her Grendel's mom, but that nickname did not stick) had an argument here six years ago, during which one of the other denizens of the street uttered doubts about her gender. Not entirely unfounded. To prove him wrong, she pulled up her dress and showed him and over a hundred other people that, biologically at least, she was all woman. This intersection smells like you imagine her mouth does, all diseased, wet, and chancroid. The two Starbucks facing each other try valiantly, but cannot still the odeur. Richard still has nighmares from that event.



Ah, the smell of San Francisco, it is the smell of victory in the morning.