The couple on MUNI

Last night on the MUNI I saw the happiest couple I’d ever seen. When they got on they were already laughing, drunk on alcohol and love. The girl carried five or six small stuffed animals, which was too many for one person to carry. They were falling out of her arms--there was even one in the hood of her hoodie(!) They looked so happy to be together and alive, and I wanted to take their picture.

Of course, I didn’t have my camera. I never have it when I see something like that. It must be Murphy’s Law or something. I wonder if I only walked around without it whether I’d see more great things like that everyday. I’d be willing to make that deal; to be able to see beauty like that and not be able to take its picture.

It was dangerous to the image I had built up in my mind, but curiosity was killing me so I asked the guy how they had obtained so many stuffed animals. It turns out he had won them in one of those machines with the claw in it. “You must be pretty good,” I told him and he laughed and shook off the compliment. “There’s a trick to it." He proceeded to tell me, but of course, I don’t remember what he said, other than something vague about moving the thing around and working the way the claw is positioned.

But, God, it made me want to try.