We ride MUNI with Juniper all the time, and the 1, the 33, the 38, the 49, the 5, the 21, are all tolerable, aside from the occasional stinky whinos who plop down next to her and the old Chinese ladies who either (1) give me unblinking, angry stares because they apparently don't think a man should be taking care of a baby; or (2) give me smiles but then reach out and touch and grab the bug the entire bus ride. Does anyone else get bugged out by strangers touching their kid? I would never touch a stranger's kid, and yet so many people feel a sense of entitlement about it, as though I am being rude when I turn or walk away with the baby. Juniper doesn't care. She smiles for everyone. She smiles at that tragic Man With No Face who rides the 31 Balboa and reads the paper even though I can't figure out where his eyes are. That's what makes babies so great.

But generally, people are way cooler on regular buses when you have a baby in a bjorn. I sometimes get to sit up front with the old ladies and the handicapped folks. People give me their seats in the back if the front is full of old folks. People smile and are generally pleasant.

The same cannot be said of the Judd-filled express buses. These are buses that go directly from the outer neighborhoods down to the financial district during rush hour skipping the tenderloin and the western addition. So these buses are filled with business-casual clad Judds and too many women with Louis Vuitton handbags. Earth to professional middle-aged women in the central Richmond: those bags, real or fake, do not make you look classy or elegant. They make you look LAME.

Express bus riders in Frisco are among most selfish and rude people I have ever encountered. Perhaps the relentless drudgery of their office work turns them into nasty, spiteful trolls who suck all enjoyment out of the summer air around them, or maybe they just haven't had their morning coffee. They pack these buses to the gills and the people who get seats completely ignore everyone who gets on. I rarely get a seat, and have watched with anger as women nine months pregnant are forced to stand for 30 minutes of jerky traffic while a cadre of Judds sat there too engrossed in their blackberries or just too lazy to give up their seat. When Wood was pregnant she rode this bus every day to get to BART and she was given a seat maybe 2 or 3 times. I don't want to get into the "is pregnancy a disability" debate, but seriously, fuck you, you motherfucking Judd asshole who finds it more important to read the first chapter of "The Life of Pi" or "Confederacy of Dunces" than to notice my wife's eight-month pregnant belly being jerked back and forth by the braking of the bus right in front of your face. I'm not a chivalrous person, I don't open doors for Wood, but I sure as shit give up my seat to a pregnant woman when I can.

A few days ago I got a seat and had that opportunity when a very pregnant woman got on the bus and no one in those front seats offered her a respite from her feet. I stood up and gave her the seat, and stood there smugly towering above the Judds and the Louis Vuitton handbags held on laps. Nobody gave a shit, but at least for twenty-five minutes I wasn't one of them. A few weeks ago I had the bug in the bjorn and I was down in the financial district and I got on a packed express bus to go home. There were no seats, so I stood. I stood there with a baby and no one even made eye contact with me. I seethed with anger, and I realized they were turning me into one of them: an angry troll broken down by the negativity of my environment. I slid a couple of the windows open and enjoyed the breeze and tried to make the best of it, bouncing the bug up and down and speaking softly into her ear, telling her how much I love her.

I've been told that people are the same on the BART and on the N-Judah and other streetcar lines, but that no one is like this in New York or other major cities. Is that the case? Why is it that professional San Franciscans can be such selfish jerks?