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Anyone who's ridden Muni in the middle of a weekday is quite familiar with this scenario. As your bus pulls up to it's stop, you see a dozen or two school kids anxiously waiting to step up and embark Muni. You and your fellow passengers groan and brace yourselves for the ensuing chaos. (Mind you, we enjoy the company of kids but not groups of them in enclosed spaces.) Last Friday morning was our most recent encounter of this kind, and we were inspired to compile all of our of "gangs of kids" on Muni memories. Feel free to share your kid/Muni invasion experiences in the comments! Friday's ride played out like this: We were riding the 49 along Van Ness, when we were soon invaded by about ten to fifteen 10/11-year-olds. Although we were at the back of the double-bus with no vantage point of the stop, we had a bit of a warning about this invasion when the bus, in the process of pulling up to the stop, was met by the collective, high-pitched screams of several young girls. We were like, oh no, did one of them get run over? Luckily not—they were just excited about the novelty of riding Muni. And maybe the driver looked like Justin Timberlake or Usher? (We can't exactly remember what our driver looked like, but we think he probably looked more like Pat Morita. And by the way, who are the tweens loving these days, anyway?) About six of these said young girls decided to all congregate in the middle, bendy part of the bus, so that they could scream every time they lost their balance, while at the same time blocking the railings for passengers attempting to get past them. We're not sure which was worse—the prepubescents' ear-piercing screams or the ear-piercing yells of their teenaged chaperones behind us who were telling them to quit screaming. One of the "chaperones" also loudly said, "I'm sure these people didn't pay to hear you scream." And we thought to ourselves, "We didn't pay to hear you scream about their screaming either," but we all know it's more than likely futile to try to communicate with power-hungry teenagers on Muni. Luckily, we soon found ourselved getting off at City Hall to buy our Fast Pass with our first commuter check at Room 140. (Until we remembered that security checks your bags at City Hall, and we had two-days worth of dirty yoga clothes stuffed in ours. Yuck.) More kids invade Muni after the jump! more ›

Best known for his role as Mr. Miyagi in , Pat Morita passed away yesterday at his home in Las Vegas. A look at his bio, however, makes it clear that Morita was much more than the guy who said "wax on, wax off." more ›