SF public transportation

Friday night was a doozy. I hope I'm beating JR to the punch.

We went to see Eddie Izzard, and he was incredible! SO funny. We'd had an incredible night until it was time to head home. We went down into the Muni station, but Muni only takes quarters. All we had was $5 bills. There was a change machine, but it only makes change for $10 and $20 bills. (What?!?!)

So we had this conversation with the most useless human being ON EARTH (the lady in the Muni booth):

JR: "Where can we get change?"
Useless: "You could buy a bunch of BART tickets..."
JR: "What do I want with BART tickets?"
Useless: "If you'd listen, sir, I'm trying to tell you! Buy them until you got enough change to take the Muni."

Me: (Partially in my head, partially under my breath to JR, and partially to Useless): "Really? That's your advice? Buy BART tickets we don't need to be able to ride your stupid Muni??? 'Cause I'm gonna crawl through that tiny window and choke some sense into you, useless, lazy, no-good cog in the twisted works that is SF Public Transportation!"

JR had to drag me back up the stairs to the street at that point, because I was getting a little loud. We go looking for an ATM, and get $20 bills. (Being in the Tenderloin, that is no small or safe feat.) Triumphant, we go back down the stairs. We put the $20 into the change machine, and it spits out... Four $5 bills. WTF??? How is that a change machine?!?! Ah... If you read carefully, it's a "bill changer" that only takes $10s and $20s. But Muni doesn't take bills, and BART doesn't take bills, so I ask you again... W.T.F.!?!?!

After a few more choice words from me to the station in general, we trudge back up the stairs to take a cab. Since it's the Tenderloin, there are no free cabs to be seen. We cross the street for better luck, and some guy jumps out in front of us with a whistle, telling us he'll hail a cab for us. No thanks - I'm perfectly capable of hailing my own cab; I'm not gonna pay some predatory conman to be my taxicab middleman. I'm still fuming about the fact that we have *thirty dollars in cash* and we can't get on public transit for lack of 12 quarters, so I'm ready to tangle with the conman. So as to avoid getting stabbed or something, we cross the street again.

It took us another 15 minutes to hail a cab. But we had the nicest, safest driving cab driver we have ever had in San Francisco. What a relief! After the night we had, we decided we deserved a late night stop at Orphan Andy's 24-hour diner in the Castro. That definitely improved both our moods. There's nothing like a place with decent diner food and hilarious, rambunctious queens waiting tables to brighten your day.