I'M NOT A religious dude. In fact, I try to piss off religious people as often as possible, which is great fun but not real sporty, since it's so easy to do. Like fishing in a fish tank at a Chinese restaurant, or shooting a shotgun at the side of a barn.

God and politics, right? Well, the best politics I hear these days comes out of Grandma Rubino, who turned either 93 or 95 today, exactly, and still believes Walter Mondale is president. Because she voted for him, you see. I registered and brainwashed her to do so myself, in a youthful fit of political activism from which I haven't quite recovered either. Twenty years later.

Meanwhile, my favorite take on God, besides for Joseph Spence's gospel-growling guitar style, which deserves its own church somewhere if not an entire denomination, comes from that old overalls guy in the swamp in Vernon, Florida who said, "That just happened – that's what God is. Just happened." Kind of a backwoods, toothless take on C.G. Jung's so-much tweedier "all things which upset my subjective views, plans and intentions and change the course of my life for better or worse."

By which definition, with either a Swiss accent or a Southern drawl, I had me a real live legitimate religious experience this afternoon – on the 24 bus!

My plans and intentions were to transfer at Castro and Market to the Muni, L Taraval, outbound, get off at the mysterious Forest Hill stop, and find a place to eat. I knew that given my utter unfamiliarity with Forest Hill (never been there, don't even know where it is) and my growling stomach, realistically, I was going to need a slice of Marcello's to tide me over. As always. So that was part of the plan, too: 24 to Market, Marcello's, L to Forest Hill.

Mondays suck for me. You too, I know. If this paper would only move my deadline day back to Thursday, then I would have Tuesdays and Wednesdays to do these things, and probably they would wind up more upbeat and food-oriented, and then everyone would be happy.

Then I could spend my Mondays in bed or locked in the basement, where I belong, licking mold and thinking dark thoughts. Plus it always rains on Mondays, and therefore it was raining. I was in a soggy frame of mind, hating life and not exactly grooving to the city in general.

I'm always susceptible, in such a frame of mind, to farmyard hallucinations, but this was not a hallucination. I knew exactly where the noise was coming from: from the back door of the bus, which, every time it folded open, crowed like a rooster. Cock-a-doodle-doo, in other words, and my fellow farmers will read that, phonetically, as errr-er-er-er-errrrrrr.

That was the exact noise, exactly, that the back door of this bus was making. All it wanted was oil, but in my susceptible state of mind, it might as well have been Lazarus blowing his trumpet, or Noah clacking tablets, or St. Joseph tuning his guitar.

Next stop it happened again.

Next stop after that nobody was getting off, so I got off, just to hear the rooster. Luckily, there were two or three people getting on, so I joined the line.

At 19th Street there was no such luck. I got off, errr-er-er-er-errrrrr, and no one was getting on. Good-bye bus. Religious experiences are like that: they drop you off and leave you, weak-kneed and ravenous, two blocks early.

Remember? I had planned and intended to get off at Market, for a tide-me-over slice of Marcello's, and Muni. I started walking. Before the end of the first block, however, I knew I was going to need a little something to tide me over until the tiding-over, and there was Nizario's Pizza, on 18th Street.

Not as good as Marcello's, but about 12¢ cheaper: $2 for a plain cheese slice, $2.25 with one thing. None of those things were sausage. You could get sausage on a whole pie, of course, but the only slices, besides plain, were pepperoni, mushroom, or Hawaiian.

I got a plain, and a pop (orange), and soccer was on TV. Soccer on TV with pizza and pop is a good thing in any language. When you're making your reentry into the secular world, it's perfect. Just the ticket – give or take sausage.

By halftime it had stopped raining again, Manchester United 2, Southampton 1. Tided over for the tiding-over, I headed toward Marcello's. And, who knows, I might have made it all the way to Forest Hill if I hadn't stopped for a between-tidings snack at Osaka, where, regretfully, being only human, I over-tided myself over.

Nizario's Pizza. 4077 18th St. (at Castro), S.F. (415) 487-0777. Sat.-Thurs., 11 a.m.-2 a.m.; Fri., 3 p.m.-2 a.m. Takeout and delivery available. No alcohol. MasterCard, Visa. Wheelchair accessible. Dan Leone is the author of Eat This, San Francisco (Sasquatch Books), a collection of Cheap Eats restaurant reviews, and The Meaning of Lunch (Mammoth Books).