Watch your neighbor!

All over SF MUNI now there are Big Broth­er-like posters telling us to watch out for any­thing sus­pi­cious. “It’s prob­a­bly noth­ing,” they read, “but why take the chance?” My under­stand­ing is that it’s San Fran­cis­co’s lat­est ploy to get some more fed­er­al mon­ey in their cof­fers: put up Home­land Secu­ri­ty posters and get paid for it.

The one that gets to me though is not one of the MUNI posters, it’s on BART. It shows a young pro­fes­sion­al-look­ing man wait­ing for a train with his news­pa­per, look­ing at an unat­tend­ed duf­fel bag. The cap­tion urges us to report all unna­tend­ed pack­ages, “just in case.”

I want to know: what­ev­er hap­pened to report­ing unat­tend­ed bags because who­ev­er left them might want them safe­ly in the lost and found instead of gone for­ev­er? Who among us has nev­er left some­thing on a train or a bus by accident?