Consolation prize

A mother is leaving BiRite with her small son. He turns toward the left and she turns toward the right.

"Oh, no, honey. We're going to walk down Valencia. So, you won't see any streetcars, but you will see Google buses!"



*****



It occurs to me belatedly that this is only funny if you live in San Francisco and since I have a vast international readership (what? someone I know lives in Switzerland. Also, the blog "stats" [which I am compelled to put in quotes because I understand them not at all] suggest that I have readership in Russia? This seems very implausible, but the stats, they say so.) I will undertake to explain why this is funny, which, as you know, is the very best way to tell a joke.

Though "Google Bus" evokes images of something magical or, at the very least, whimsical (Is it like the psychedelic tour bus in The Muppet Movie? Is it like the night bus in Harry Potter? Is is some kind of amazing think tank on wheels?), there is really nothing all that fascinating about Google buses. They are very large (I believe they have two stories of seating). They are white. They are ALL OVER my neighborhood. And, their sole purpose is to transport Google employees to and from work. A corollary is to illustrate to the rest of San Francisco that half of the city's population is seemingly employed by Google. Those of us who do not work for Google can be um... a wee bit tetchy about the ubiquity of the exclusive cool-kid transport, (like here and here and here) but, now we know at least one toddler is super excited about them.

See?
Funny.