The Cost of a Salad

October 2019

Wednesday evening.

You frantically jump into the Salesforce Tower elevator, agitatedly jabbing at the “Door Close” button.

Two missed calls from your Caviar driver are the source of your urgency. You’d gotten lost in a Wikipedia article (who can work with a grumbling stomach and food on the way?), forgetting that there’s no cell service in the middle of the building. Now there’s a chance that you’ve missed your delivery window.

Dashing out of the elevator, you jog down the corridor to the gates, scanning frantically through the giant glass face leading out to Mission Street. Relief washes over you as you spy a figure on a scooter with a red Doordash bag at his feet.

You slow to a stroll and wave to catch his attention, mentally running through your list of apologies and excuses. But Minh is distracted, gesticulating towards a figure on his left.Your heart sinks as your eyes land on the parking enforcement officer.

First and Mission

One of the city’s most chaotic intersections. First Street is a key one-way southbound artery, funneling a significant volume of traffic from FiDi to the Bay Bridge. Mission Street is one of the few two-way streets in this part of SoMa; less traffic than First, but complicated by the dedicated bus lanes that take up half of its area. There are two construction sites nearby, so trucks and cranes are routinely coming and going—and stopping traffic as they back in to construction sites.

Salesforce Tower, the tallest building on the West Coast, is located at the southeast corner, its front doors opening onto Mission Street. Its designated dropoff / pickup area, rather than be intuitively placed in front of the building and its massive sidewalk patio, is relegated around the corner, on bustling First Street. Instead, a massive red bus lane fronts the building on Mission Street

A ticket for stopping in this no-stopping zone will cost you more than a hundred bucks; you’ll find parking enforcement officers on the prowl here in mornings and evenings, waiting to pounce on unsuspecting drivers. Unsurprisingly in the beating heart of a city addicted to on-demand, most of their victims work for Uber, Lyft, or food delivery companies.

“See, he here!” Minh points at me, agitatedly speaking in a thick Vietnamese accent, “He didn’t pick up his phone! See, I going now, I only here two minute!”

The parking officer is having none of it.

“See the sign? See the red lines? No stopping.”

He raises his phone to take a picture of Minh’s license plate, prints out a ticket, and sticks the stub in Minh’s face. Minh takes it unconsciously and slumps on his scooter, blinking glumly at the shred of paper clutched in his hand.

You recall your last ticket—for turning right against a “no turn on red” sign. Remember the rapid progression through the five stages of grief as you contemplated the several hundred dollars that would imminently vanish from your net worth.

There are no good words for such situations.

Minh gestures at you accusingly—more sad than angry, “I call you! Why you don’t pick up?”

You wonder how much money Minh has saved up, how many kids he has to feed back at home.

“I-I’m really sorry man.,” the words ring hollowly, “I didn’t have service and missed your call…this sucks...I’m sorry”

He barely reacts, lifting his arm to look at the ticket and then letting it drop, almost on the verge of tears. What seems like an eternity later, he remembers what he came here for, reaching down into the bag and pulling out the salad that precipitated this entire situation.

I have to do something, you think as you reach into your pocket and pull out your wallet. There’s a $20 in there, a few $5s and a $1. You hand the crumpled wad of cash to Minh.

“Here, man. Again, I really don’t know what to say…I’m sorry, man…”

He numbly grips the cash, barely registering the gesture. His face is downcast—a bit of shock, a bit of despair. He’s in his own world now—you might as well be Casper the Friendly Ghost.

You slowly back away from the stunned man, back into the building’s lobby. As you enter the gleaming elevator bay, you glance back again and see Minh’s forlorn figure, still slumped atop his scooter.

In San Francisco, a salad often costs more than $14.99.