People.

Free entertainment.

People-watching as a pastime = a friggin’ blast. Cost: Muni fare + cup of coffee + pastry (optional).

One of my favorite things to do with my ex-boyfriend was to sit outside the Coffee Roastery in San Fran nursing a triple latté while watching the parade of people going up and down Union Street. FREE fucking entertainment. We could easily sit there for two hours laughing our asses off. Rich people, strutting up and down Union Street on a Sunday afternoon with their tiny dogs and designer togs. Cringe-worthy older men who imagined they stood a chance of picking up one of the hot young women in Lululemon’s.

It’s not polite to stare, but who ever accused us of being polite?

Then there were the older women from Pacific Heights who’d wasted a shit ton of mullah on plastic surgery, trust fund kids from the Marina meeting up with their hungover friends for a greasy brunch and wealthy young couples with babies and toddlers who were clearly not up to the challenges of parenthood (thank god for nannies).

Rule #1: do not leave your baby unattended on the sidewalk. Period. Even if you’re just popping in for a sec to try on those Jimmy Choo’s you saw in the boutique window.

Then there was the occasional person who was not from the hood. A stray. We were definitely in that last category, what with me in my well-worn Keen sandals (+ socks) and pilled Costco fleece, Jim wearing his Wilson’s leather coat from the 90’s and aviator Ray Bans à la Joe Biden. Invisible goofballs who were three-decades-past-our-expiration-date “cool.”

Then off to North Beach. Fuck. Tons of old-school Italian guys with big guts behind tiny bistro tables their limbs spilling out onto the sidewalk. At night you had to be careful not to trip over their swollen ankles. These guys were either putting back cappuccinos and cannoli or wolfing down huge bowls of pasta. Always fun to plop yourself down next to one of these groups of men and eavesdrop. So much bullshit and bragging and imagined virility. Omg. And then there was their sizing up of every woman who walked by.

“Hey there pretty lady! I’m not creepy.”

A high point for me was when we were seated next to a 300+ lb. guy in his 70’s who was putting back shots of Sambuca with his buddies. A perfectly normal looking woman in her 40’s walks by, clearly out doing some shopping, minding her own business. God help her… she doesn’t give these guys the time of day when they greet her in their menacing sort of way. The big guy then shouts “She could do with a few sit-ups!” Lady keeps walking. Doesn’t even look back. That was it for me. I laughed so hard, tears were streaming down my face. FUCK. And I was seated right next to the big guy. Boy, was he pissed off. That made me laugh even harder. Please bring the fucking check! I need to bail!

Mirrored sunglasses make leering less obvious. Rich clearly grabbed ‘em right out of his wife’s purse. Rich’s motto: “Don’t matter where you get your appetite, as long as you do your eatin’ at home.”

Sometimes we would go down to Fisherman’s Wharf to watch the guy who dressed as a shrub. He would jump out from the hedge in which he was camouflaged and scare the shit out of the tourists. That was funny. I always tipped that guy, like a lot. Then there were the tourists themselves. They might as well have had a tattoo on their foreheads that read “I am from Kenosha.” I loved counting how many times would they say “Frisco” or argue about which seafood restaurant was THE seafood restaurant that everyone talks about (“everyone” being their friends from Wisconsin). Didn’t see any San Franciscans eating down there at the Wharf. Not one.

This might be a good gig for Marjorie Taylor Greene in a couple of years.

Then there was the Santa Cruz Boardwalk… man! A whole new level of entertainment. People from everywhere, of every age, every walk of life, every ethnicity. All of humanity bonding over carnival rides, fried food, mile long lines for the urinals and gorgeous ocean views. Throughout the day you’d see parents and grannies freaking out about kids who’d disappeared into the sea of sweaty families sporting O’Neill Surf Shop t-shirts. Park security (bless their friggin’ hearts) always found these kids and usually they were parked in front of the shaved ice hut next to the Autorama. Didn’t take a criminal profiler to figure that one out. Just a 19-year-old park security officer.

So many great food choices on the Boardwalk.

Nice baseball caps. You don’t look like the type of guys who read signs.

Also fun to watch was first-timers cuing up to do the rickety old wood roller coaster. Invariably they would leave on their baseball caps and new sunglasses, this DESPITE the many signs that read “Warning: remove hats and sunglasses during the ride.” Gotta look cool in Santa Cruz, right? At the end of the ride, guess what? No sunglasses, no caps, no fancy scarves. The Santa Cruz Roller Coaster Marauder strikes again. As an observer, one had to wait patiently for the unprepared guests to take the ride, then disembark, but the entertainment value was well worth it. The number of people who ignored the signs… well, there were a lot of them. Some of them were from Stockton, others from India. This phenomenon of sign-ignoring apparently transcends all cultures and religious persuasions. The expressions on their faces once the adrenaline wore off and they realized their $400 Ray Bans were GONE: priceless. All of this was funny to me until it happened to my own son and it was my money flying into the wind. Thank god the Boardwalk has several designated employees that gather up missing loot at the end of the rides. Holy toots.

Bright red “Lifeguard” hoodies seemed like a great idea for keeping track of your kids until you realized everyone was wearing them.

Back in San Fran…

And then there was the time Jim and I got off the bus near Market St. only to be confronted (perhaps “accosted” is the right word) by the Brides of March celebration… hundreds men and women dressed up in wedding gowns with tiaras and veils, bouquets, the whole get-up. The first “bride” we encountered was a bearded, furry chested, balding, middle-aged man with oversized black rimmed glasses in a wheelchair sporting a strapless wedding dress with intricate floral appliqué. His expensive dress was filthy and ripped from dragging under his wheels. Where is David Tutera when you need him?

The Brides of March. Only in San Francisco.

And who could forget all the hub bub about the right to eat in the nude in San Francisco restaurants? I’m talking like any restaurant in the whole city, not just designated nudist restaurants. Really hard to keep from snickering when you got seated next to a table of guys meeting for what sounded like a business lunch but whose only attire is their prescription glasses and the fanny packs for their wallets. The new “business casual,” apparently. And of course these guys were insistent about being seated at the table next to the fireplace. Yeah, no doubt they were freezing their nuts off. Shit. The funniest part was their nonchalant attitude about the whole thing. As if.

Often difficult to distinguish fresh dill from you-know-what.

And then there were the subsequent public hearings about nude dining, also hilarious. Should nude guests have to bring a towel to put on their seats for sanitation? Should nude people be allowed to partake in the salad bar or a buffet? What about dim sum carts? Could restaurant owners force customers to cover up when children were present? These are the existential questions that haunt San Franciscans.

PEOPLE. Geez. They are everywhere.

Next week: my dad strikes up a long-winded conversation with Nancy Pelosi who’s at the jump house with her grandkids. Heads up: he has no idea who she is.

People. Some are related to you.