»In which I wear out the shoe leather

As I found myself at Civic Center at 5.30 this evening, I looked at the surprisingly cloud-free sky and figured that I would walk home, rather than stand in a humid MUNI aisle. And then as I looked down Market and saw nary an outbound bus, I wondered if I might reach home faster than if I were to ride MUNI.
If I walk the MUNI route, I could easily see when one of the outbound buses might pass me. The route is pretty straightforward: along Market Street, turn right on Haight, and then bob's yr uncle.
I walked all the way to Larkin before two buses, both northbound 19-Polk trolleys, rolled sedately past. An F-Market screeched by as I waited at the infuriating intersection of Market and Van Ness. -- infuriating because of the new crosswalk signals, which beep incessantly. When one pushes them, the beeping changes (and a light comes on); what do the different beeps indicate? How might I, as a blind or deaf pedestrian, know what pushing the button accomplishes? And the only gain is a psychological one, for the light timing has not changed at all -- so pushing the button does not accelerate the pedestrian signal. What the intersection needs is an all-walk cycle, really, but that is tricky considering that Van Ness is really State Highway 101 in disguise.
I walked past several moaning derelicts and the new wine bar Cav before reaching the congested intersection of Franklin, Page, and Market: still no 6/66/7/71/71L in sight. Traffic on this stretch of Market gets all buggered up during rush-hour because of the way the freeway exit ramp defers north-bound crosstown traffic onto Market for two blocks before it reaches Franklin. Why Octavia Boulevard does not reach Geary I will never understand -- I swear that is what I thought I voted for all those years back!
I started walking up the last stretch towards home, and not without a trace of worry on my brow: well into the rush hour, and not a single bus had passed me. I saw what looked like MUNI tail-lights ahead, on th' other side of Octavia, but nothing behind me. Might I actually overtake MUNI? I chuckled at the thought.
I waited on the east side of Octavia. A cyclist was getting a little ahead of himself, skillz-wise, with a limp attempt at a track-stand, and kept lurching into the intersection. (Aside: How do you manage to not 'track' stand when pointing uphill?) Finally a big pickup truck honked at him, and he turned back towards me and said, "Will you look at that. They're mad because they're stuck in traffic, and they take it out on us." I told him, "If I had a horn, I would honk it at you. You are in the intersection against the light, and that's not only disrespectful, but your guardian angel is working overtime." Before I finished, he spluttered, "I can't believe you're on the side of the cars!", issued a few choice epithets, and turned to ride off, only to then realise that he was in the headlights of another oncoming car. I smiled. As the light changed and he finally took off, I saw that he was stupidly riding with a freewheel.
I figured that a bus would catch me up for certain as I had to keep in low gear walking up the three blocks towards the Lower Haight, but it was not until I passed the bus stop closest to home before MUNI, and I would'n't have taken the bus -- it was a 71L and did'n't even stop. A 66 Parnassus and I reached the corner of my block at the same time. Twenty-five minutes, during which not a single bus passed me.
I beat MUNI home during rush-hour.