The Joys of People Watching.

So this guy was trying to leave a parallel parking space across the street from my apt. on Hyde – he had plenty of room behind him to maneuver as some non-descript sedan (NDS) was a good three feet back. However, when the guy was getting in his older small truck to leave, the alarm on the NDS went off. He sat in his little truck until the alarm stopped—it wasn’t too terribly long compared to some I’ve heard, but still annoying of course.

But when the guy started his truck, and began backing up to maneuver out of the parallel space, the NDS behind him chirped—even though he was still a good two feet away. So the guy semi-panics, and lurches to a stop. I can’t actually see him from my vantage point, but I imagine him looking behind him and being surprised to hear the chrip—both coz not a lot of cars have that “feature” and coz, as I say, he still had a fair amount of space between the back of his little truck and the front of the NDS.

Unfortunately, he doesn’t have nearly the room in front of him, so most all his maneuvering has to be behind. But now the guy is so scared or leery or whatever of the insidious chirp of the NDS, he works PAINFULLY to inch forward (and now is so jumpy you can tell he’s terrified of hitting the car in front of him), and then starts to back up again only to hear the chirp from the NDS. It was almost like a “Christine” kind of moment (google “Stephen King + Christine” if you don’t get the reference).

Anyway, he repeats this maneuver at least three more times, at which point I am so over the chirping of the NDS that I am forcefully attempting to will the wussy in the small truck to go all Gru from “Despicable Me” on that parking space. Oh, that would have been sweet! Why can’t real life be more like decent animated movies? Sigh.

This is just one example of how “People Watching” can, indeed, be an interesting pastime and another one of the benefits of living in a city – esp. one with as many “characters” as San Francisco. But even the commonplace can be interesting if you’re open to it.

Like one night I was standing at my window, overlooking Hyde, when this woman crossed, jaywalking diagonally across Hyde from Sutter towards me. She happened to look up and noticed me in the window. She looked up again after a few more steps, and once more after a few more steps before she disappeared down the sidewalk.

Because it was dark, and I wasn’t even really looking at her but rather these 3 thug wannabes all dressed alike who were “Yo-in’” at the corner, I only saw this woman out of the corner of my eye (she was white, around 30-40, pretty nondescript overall—yes, this week’s word is nondescript); but I did notice her look up at me 3 different times while crossing the street.

She didn’t smile or acknowledge me at any time -neither did I her, but considering the lighting differences we faced, she would have been less or flat out unable to see if I was looking at her or not. She actually had a look of not quite fear, but the expectation of fear—like she should be prepared to be either afraid or freaked out or grossed out by something I might suddenly do (see last week’s blog post and BE AFRAID!).

But of course she could have been—and, in fact, most likely was—thinking, feeling, nay even possibly PLOTTING something entirely different. It looks like I’m lucky to have escaped!

If real life were like TV, of course, as soon as this woman was out of my line of sight, her eyes would have glittered and turned either red or silver or yellow and she would have smiled seductively—exposing vampire teeth. But before she could get to me to convert me to the undead, a nondescript (naturellement!) serial killer with a totally ironic daytime job will dispatch her.

But will the struggle turn this serial killer into a vampire? I’m sure we’ll soon discover when they create the inevitable mashup of True Blood and Dexter. And it will be on some random cable channel like Discovery.

Kyle would watch it.

Okay, I probably would, too.

So last example of how people-watching stirs the imagination: Last Sunday I was looking out the window and feeling sorry for this OLD guy trying to get across Hyde with a walker. I mean, he would SLOWLY put the walker out maybe half a step and then he would SLOWLY take that half a step, pause, and then repeat. After watching him for awhile, I went and got a drink, came back, and he still hadn’t quite made it across the street. I decided to time him and see how long it would take him to get however far I could see him.

As it so happens, he “only” was going to the convenience store one business down from the corner to sit in one of the convenient people-watching chairs placed there for old men. In the end, it took him TEN MINUTES to go not even 1/5th of a block. Extrapolate that out and it means it takes him nearly an HOUR to “walk” one full block—and that’s a Downtown block, not a South of Market block.

Remember that man the next time you complain about feeling old, David, you big whiner!