We’ll start with the token blue-collar business. Down toward the Laguna end of this block of Union, a red banner plastered on the home of plumbing/heating/appliance specialists A. Valente & Sons defiantly announces, We’re Here 100 Years – Get Used To It. One of its signature ramshackle red Ford pickups sits across the street, and the stubborn survival of such an unsophisticated enterprise along this, the Yankee Stadium of big-league boutiquery, gets us wondering: Will women’s fashion retailers BCBG Maxazria or Pavillion de Paris still be making sales here early in the 22nd century? Can Marc Jacobs handbags and Lennox heating systems forever co-exist on Union St.?...

SFist reader Bob writes in with an issue we hear about almost every holiday: Muni buses that appear to be running, but blow by stop after stop after stop with "Out Of Service" on their displays. We not-so-fondly recall Thanksgiving, 1998, on which we had not one, not two, but six 5 Fultons pass us by. We have to wonder if drivers are celebrating by running their routes sans passengers! Mr. Ford, our 1998 problem......