Any time a veteran San Francisco Muni rider hops onto a city bus, in the back of their mind they're always kind of expecting something ridiculous to happen. Stuffing that many people from all walks of life into an enclosed space on a daily basis is a surefire recipe for everything from crazy dude karaoke jams to gross-out masturbation sessions.
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Mayoral candidate Phil Ting even went as far as releasing his very own Muni Survival Kit—complete with a Leatherman, hand sanitizer and sunglasses to help avoid unwanted eye contact.
One item conspicuously absent from the kit: pepper spray, and there's a good reason for that. It's usually a bad idea to use pepper spray in a confined environment.
This lesson was vividly captured on video by Bay City News reporter/editor Dan McMenamin as he was riding the 8X bus last Thursday.
"[A] Man and girl...[started] arguing on a Muni 8X bus because she didn't like him singing loudly...she and her friends end up trying to walk out of the bus but he dumps a cup full of some liquid on them," McMenamin told SF Appeal. "The woman who got poured on came back on the bus from another door then sprayed the guy with mace...he stumbles around as his pants start falling down. Eventually everyone on the bus had to clear out because the pepper spray spread."
Check out McMenamin's video (story continues below):
And the thrilling conclusion:
On Twitter, McMenamin called the altercation, "not quite newsworthy but definitely Youtube worthy," although the pepper spray victim's wardrobe malfunction at the end of the second video may definitively push it over it into latter category.
This incident isn't the first time pepper spray has emptied a Muni bus this year. In April, a teenage girl on a Mission bus used the spray to ward off two drunks who allegedly tried to grope her.
In February, six people (including two children) were sent to the hospital when pepper spray was released at the Powell Street Muni station.
A third incident, this one a direct assault on an entire Muni bus by a number of young women in the Bayview, ended with a bus full of injured and/or hospitalized riders and a handful of stolen cell phones.
Presumably, in all three of those cases, everyone's pants stayed on.