why muni rides are fun

I was on the muni the other day. The car was pretty empty, only with a few passengers including me. A young guy with a beard was sitting about six feet away, facing my way, with his earphones on, looking down at the book he held and then around at the other passengers. I turned my eyes away, down on my book. He didn't look dangerous, but could possibly fit in the category of "weird people" who you see wandering around on the streets of San Francisco. They do no harm, but they sometimes talk to you, and if you don't want to be talked to, you better look away.

So I was reading my book, getting into it, almost forgetting about him, then after a few stops he suddenly said very loudly, "Excuse me?"

I looked up hoping he wasn't talking to me, but there was nobody else near him and he was staring straight at me, his earphones now in his right hand. I noticed his ipod, or some other kind of MP3 player, was shiny green-blue. I also noticed that his eyes looked sane, which made me feel relieved despite that I was still a bit uneasy because of the volume of his voice.

Frowning a little, he asked, "What's the capital of Colorado?"

He kept looking at me expectantly. It was my turn to frown, because I didn't know. The question was in fact so unexpected it took me a while to understand it. I shook my head indicating I didn't know.

"What's the capital of Colorado?" he said again looking away from me, toward the back of the car. A guy's voice answered, "Boulder."

"Huh?" the guy said.
"It's probably Boulder."
"Yeah, that's what I thought, but I wasn't sure."

He put his earphones back on and started scribbling in his book.

After coming home, I googled. It was Denver.