Commuter check yo' self

Panda!!!! is among the thousands of commuters who take the San Francisco public transport system (the muni) to and from work every day. And every day it's sort of a crapshoot. Will I have to wait for 5 crowded trains to pass before I can get on? Will there be an empty train waiting for me? Will I get stuck for 30 minutes between stations? Will my commute take a happy 15 minutes? It's like gambling at 8:00, but fortunately I have my trusty Wall Street Journal to entertain me on most days.

Another form of entertainment is silently engaging with my fellow muni passengers. Two games often keep me occupied while waiting to get to my destination (or waiting for the train to start moving again):

Name That Tune: Certainly the game I play the most. With all those passengers wearing iPods and cranking the volume up, I often pass time wondering whether it's Madonna, Mozart or Metallica that's piping into their ears. It often helps if the passenger sings (and this is often the case).

Stare Them Down: On those occasions that I make eye contact with a passenger - a passenger with a certain predilection for staring, I try to see if I can make them break his or her gaze first. Usually, I get nervous and lose this game.

Besides the games, observing my fellow muni patrons and looking around the train often just makes me wonder:

"Why are there chicken bones on the floor?"
"What's that odor?"
"What is that liquid sloshing around on the plastic seat?"
"What could possibly be in that gigantic, oddly shaped case?"
"Why would you even consider wearing that?"
"Where did your teeth go?"

Ah muni, it's like a giant petri dish, growing different San Francisco cultures.