THINKING KINDLY

In case you had forgotten, today is street cleaning day on this side of the block. When means that if you are one of the four people still parked right now, you are getting a ticket. The cost of which will contribute a small bit towards keeping the city running, and the retirement fund for bureaucrats, as well as ocasional emergency services, and pre-printed ticket forms in tear-off blocks that fit neatly inside a SFMTA standard issue work shirt. Which makes you feel mightily chuffed, I know. It's your minor contribution to a well-functioning society.

It does not contribute to the San Francisco fog.
That comes with the territory.
Icing on the cake.

As a long time resident here, I do not own a car. So es ist mir scheißegal on which side of the street the cleaning vehicle rolls today. Or tomorrow. Between 7 AM and nine.

The workmen down the street are all getting tickets. And for that the building contractor has probably made an allowance. The vehicle owners will be on the scaffolding placidly enjoying their cup of tea and a Camel cigarette, while the hardworking SFMTA functionary oozes out of their meter maid conveyance to slip a paper tag under their windshield wiper, before happily going on to the next pickup truck and the next ticket. A profitable morning!
It makes everybody happy. You can just feel the joy.

There are times when I wish this was Amsterdam, with cafe awnings where one could sit with one's pipe at the crack of dawn dawdling over coffee, or somewhere in Kowloon with a mug of strong milk tea, a bowl of congee, and a yautiu, while discussing the stock market with Ma Sook who runs the place. Who is smoking his third Double Happiness cigarette while behind the counter. Nothing says early morning while the outside temperatures are still bearable and all the kiddie-winkies are bundled off to school better than smokes and parking tickets.

Except, of course, that Ma Sook has not been able to smoke in his place of business since 2007, I don't know beans about the stock market (so we could talk about the horse races perhaps), and neither one of us own a car. The Netherlands banned indoor public smoking in 2008. Since then, in both places, thousands of older people have died of weather related diseases -- pneumonia, typhoid, the plague -- because they have to go outside for a puff. Good riddance, as far as the bureacrats and vegan do-gooders are concerned.
They were just taking up room and breathing everyone else's air!


An early morning dog walker glowered at me while I was wandering around at the top of the hill with my pipe, which I took to heart. I do not like displeasing the people who are picking up dog poo. They serve a useful function. We can't leave little Muffy's bowel movement just lying there steaming there on the sidewalk, it must be properly disposed of. And dog owners are useful members of society! They perform desk jobs remotely, like paper shuffling with computer files for gadget and widget companies downtown!

By the way: When I'm outside with a pipe I always have a sufficiency of pipe cleaners with me in case some other smoker needs one or has a gurgly shank. I presume Muffy's owner has an extra baggie with him on the off-chance that some other canine has a bowel movement. It's the Christian thing to do.



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