Muni FastPass holiday cheer

The ticket booth at the Church Street Muni subway stop is decorated with over one hundred real, vintage FastPass cards strung like Christmas ornaments. The very enthusiastic employee who was womaning the booth informed me that it was a dual-purpose display: for the holiday but also because the old FastPass is phased out shortly, being completely replaced by the Clipper card system. No more monthly change-up of colors. She and friends put together this assemblage, composed of vintage cards dating from the late 60s.

Please just go

I was walking down Market Street last week, leaving the gym and heading to lunch. I walk this way often but I still pay attention to the storefronts to see what’s new, or what’s on the way out. As I walked past The Cafe, the sign by their door caught my eye. It was headlined: Please exit gracefully.

Wow, I though to myself, that’s a great way to put it, isn’t it? So much better than just pleading for people to be quiet and not obnoxious out on the sidewalks at 2 in the morning. It got me to thinking about how our society sometimes sets very low expectations of people, perhaps so as not to make anyone feel bad for not achieving whatever it is. So no, don’t just exit quietly – Please exit gracefully! Love it.

Then, as I was about to walk away, I saw that I had misread it. “Please exit quietly,” it says. Oh, bleh.

Therapy

So I was in Los Angeles doing training for a client last week. I flew down the night before, and the next morning as I was taking my shower I wanted to condition my hair, so it would look its healthy, shiny, fullest. But what did I find in that hotel bathroom but the most dreaded of hotel bath products – hair conditioner in a hard plastic bottle.

So tempting, the pearlescent blue gel in the little bottle, but practically impossible to get out since you can’t squeeze it, and it’s literally too thick, and too small an amount, to pour out on its own.

Therapy? You need therapy after spending wasted minutes shaking the damn bottle! My hair was a mess.