Archived Observation

San Francisco is known around the world for its beautiful weather… never too hot, never too cold, and rarely do we ever get a significant downpour of rain. This makes for an amazing city to live in. You don't need summer or winter clothes… and you just need to have an umbrella in case we get a little drizzle.

However, now that we have been living here for a few years, we have realized that there are some real benefits to having a major downpour once a month or so. The biggest benefit is that the rain cleans the crap off of the sidewalk.

Now, before you think that I am exaggerating, while walking to the tattoo shop this afternoon, I had to play dodge the disgusting stain on the sidewalk all the way from the apartment to the tattoo studio (about 12 blocks). There was some puke, some dog feces, and some indescribable messes that were most likely caused by a human's intestinal tract.

Back in Boston, we would get a good rainy day at least once a month. Though we complained while it was raining, we would always comment on how clean everything was afterwards. In San Francisco, there is so little rain, the City has to hire professional street cleaners to come by with steam-cleaners and steam the shit off of the sidewalk.

Envision this: A man, spraying hot steam at a pile of hardened puke… which turns the semi-solid puke into puke vapor that all of us passers-by can inhale.

What's the solution? El Nino? Zambonis equipped for asphalt, not ice? I don't have a solution, but there has to be something better than making all of this street-shit airborne.