But sometimes you can outsmart yourself. I’ve only “lost” my car once, forgetting where it was parked for a few days but finding it in time to move it before the dreaded street cleaning timeslot. Admittedly, I was a bit slow to catch on to this parking-ticket intensive time when I first got here, racking up 5 tickets in about 4 months – but not a one after that. Until.

There’s a Monday 7-9 zone on the street behind my apartment, and I have moved my car there on Monday mornings in the past around 8:45. The street seldom looks like it was actually CLEANED, but there’s usually one lone car sitting sadly with a ticket on the windshield, and I give a silent fist-pump, then offer up a “Sorry, dude,” to the fates in order to avoid bad karma for taking glee in someone else’s misfortune.

Last Monday, I had to get to work early. Seeing other cars on the street, I ass-umed these people must ALSO be sly and know it was safe to park. It wasn’t. Sadly, I cannot fight my ticket. I played the odds, and lost. This Monday – I know better.

But tonight, I found myself in a mood. I bought a pack of smokes at a corner store outside of 111 Minna, and got a book of matches, and found myself cussing in the wind as I tried to light one. I sought shelter in an ATM vestibule, and went through about 8 matches before I decided this was a sign I should give up. Then a stranger spoke up behind me and said, “YOU need a LIGHTER,” and handed me hers. She also warned me not to set my hair on fire.

I realized that while smoking is clearly terrible for you, and I understand why you can’t do it in workplaces or restaurants, there is a certain kind sensibility that comes with the practice. A shared experience – where people offer each other lights. I don’t know what’s replaced that, and it’s a little sad. I suppose it could be offering someone a quarter if they don’t quite have bus fare, or giving someone directions if they look lost – but not many other opportunities to step in and help a stranger out.

While San Francisco is by and large a non-smoking city, smokers seem to have created their own small society. They congregate outside office buildings, or bars late at nights, or other corners at odd times of the day. Besides the physical craving for the nicotine itself, the subculture itself must provide its own lure to keep people from deciding the health benefits outweigh the social benefits.

When we got to the last stop before the express jaunt downtown, another MUNI dispatcher/overseer/customer service agent boards the bus with a passenger and asks the driver if he could stop at Hyde so the woman could get off at the hospital. The driver says of course, and the woman politely thanks him.

There was clearly a double-standard of service being offered on the route today, between the articulate, well-dressed, blonde woman and the ragged, not-so-sweet-smelling, mumbling homeless man. But I wondered if some of my fellow passengers were thinking they didn’t give a rat’s ass who rode or didn’t ride the bus, and were just annoyed because our express bus was slowed down TWICE.