The City Is At War: San Francisco Pillow Fight 2008!

It is Valentine's Day. So freakin' what?! As a celebrant of Singles Awareness Day, I joined my friends Monica and Cheryl and a few of our residents to the "Pillow Fight", this bizarre annual event of, what else, pillow fighting! Ridiculous as it sounds, people arrived en masse to take part in the tradition at Justin Herman Plaza/Embarcadero near the Ferry Building. Apparently the whole affair is an example of "flash mobbing", which is the act of having a vast number of people congregate in a specific area to do an unusual act for a period time before dispersing to their everyday lives. The primary modes of advertising were through the internet and word-of-mouth. There are similar Pillow Fight events just about everywhere around in the world, including New York City and London.

Cheryl was a tad hesitant to participate in the actual fighting, but once people took swings at her, she fought back! Monica was super excited to get violent, for the name of relieving stress. And due to the curiousity factor of the event, I could not miss it. It was actually really a trip to take out our agression on complete strangers (and USF peeps) and see feathers fly everywhere, especially into peoples' eyes and mouths. It was an exercise in discipline to try not ingesting feathers or polyester stuffing. Although this is certainly not what normal people day everyday, San Franciscans have a good sense of humor and dammit, it was fun!

Take a look at the craziness:

During a break, Cheryl and I stumbled upon a "Free Food" stand where crackers, fruit, and miscellaneous freebies were placed in a sketchy box, and on the ground!

Cheryl and Monica went at it in a one-one-one duel. Those two got really into it, and Cheryl lost grip of her pillow for a moment. LOL.

Prior to leaving we saw that people were laying on layers of the pillow stuffing. You know, pillow fighting is quite draining!