Dave Eggers: San Franciscans love Dave Eggers. Everyone knows that God has forsaken San Francisco, but if he hadn’t he could only pray that he would be worshipped as much as Dave Eggers is, but when you’re God who do you pray to if not Dave Eggers?
Any San Franciscan worth their Timbuk2 messenger bag has a copy of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius on their nightstand, and this is because San Franciscans can relate to this book. Not because they’ve read it, novels are really hard to read on your iPhone, but because they think this would be a great title for the opera that will one day be written about their lives.
San Franciscans are always pretty sure they’re breaking somebody’s heart, which is why they spend so much time searching for themselves on Missed Connections. San Franciscans really want to see, Away We Go, the new film written by Dave Eggers and his wife, Vendela Vida. Before the film had even come out San Franciscans got together and decided that they loved it, partly because it stars Maya Rudolph who is diverse looking and John Krasinski who is funny in an unobtrusive way, but mostly because it was written by God.
San Franciscans think Away We Go is God’s sophomore effort following his breakout non-fiction piece called, The Bible, which San Franciscans think was written by God only because they have never seen a bible.
San Franciscans want their sickness to come from a particular place, and that place is usually The East Bay. Talking about being sick: San Franciscans love talking about being sick. There is never a time when a San Franciscan is not sick, getting sick, recovering from an illness, or dead. Even Dave Eggers makes San Franciscans feel sick, but lovesick is a whole different kind of illness.
Nothing frightens a San Franciscan more than a cold. If a person even looks like they’re going to sneeze a San Franciscan will try to have that person arrested or forcibly removed from the Muni.
San Franciscans love to try to ward off sickness by buying non-prescription ‘medications’ at Walgreens. Some of their favorites are Airborne, zinc, Cold-EEZE (cough drops that cost $7), Emergen-C, and tiny white pellets called oscillococcinum that apparently come from France. Never mention the term ‘placebo effect’ to a San Franciscan who has her mouth full of citrus flavored lozenges.
Within 3 hours of starting on this healing regimen San Franciscans expect to be totally better and on their way to cocktails with the girls. When this doesn’t happen they become surly and immediately start talking about being sick again, and wondering out loud whether they should go to the hospital.
San Franciscans always want to know why they’re sick, and they’ll keep asking over and over as though they are Hamlet giving his final soliloquy and everyone else in the room is dead. San Franciscans want their sickness to come from a particular place, and that place is usually The East Bay.
So the next time a San Franciscan asks you this question, realize that even though it should be a rhetorical question it isn’t, and ask, “When was the last time you were tested?” This shuts them up almost immediately while they search for the number for their doctor and their shrink.
