Around 2 a.m. Wednesday, Miguel Moises’ phone started going crazy. Each buzz corresponded to a new booking at the Bay Area Smash Room, the rage room he opened in Nob Hill in 2021, that lets pissed-off people take baseball bats and crowbars to plates, printers, keyboards, tires, and other bashable items.
“The election results were in and people wanted to smash stuff,” he said. His bookings were up 380% the day after the election.
Many of Moises’ customers cited politics as their reason for scheduling on their booking forms, a trend that was true of groups and couples. “Couples are mad,” he said, “and couples like to smash stuff together.”
As people adjust to the reality of a second Trump presidency, Bay Area residents are getting creative with their self-care solutions, from getting massages to adopting dogs and forgetting the woes of the adult world by hanging out with kids.
“People’s TMJ was worse — I could tell they were clenching all night,” said Candace Combs, a massage therapist and owner of In-Symmetry Spa in Mission Creek. For a painful jaw, Combs offers “intraoral” massages, which involve placing gloved fingers inside a person’s mouth.
Combs treated 11 clients on Wednesday. She was booked solid, she said, and received multiple calls and texts from clients begging her to fit them in. “Everybody’s insanely stressed,” she said. “Their knots were way bigger than usual.”
Combs spent Wednesday de-stressing others, but she’s stressed herself. “I’m a queer woman who’s married with a kid and I’m feeling terrible [that] evangelical Christians are going to be running our nation in January,” she said.
At Muttville, a dog rescue and adoption center in the North Mission, around 80 people showed up the day after the election “to pet dogs and have a little respite,” said Danielle McHugh, Muttville’s office manager, noting that’s triple their usual traffic. “They said they were feeling sad and they wanted some cuddle time.”
Palm Pilot, a 7-year-old fluffy Pomeranian mix (who also responds to the name MySpace), received the most attention, and people were also drawn to the older dogs, said Alice Ensor, Muttville’s adoption supervisor. They loved Posie, a 16-year-old poodle, she said. “She’s a little fragile, but people want to take care of the underdogs.”
Rebecca Brian Pan, the founder of Trellis Coworking space in SoMa, woke up teary and “needing hugs.” But she refused to stay mired in misery, so midafternoon, Pan and Sawyer, her 8-year-old son, set up a “Hope Ade” lemonade stand in Dolores Park. They sold $1 lemonade with a side of hope. All buyers were asked to write one hope they have for the future on a Post-it note, which Sawyer stuck to his sign. “One person wrote, ‘I hope we can be friends,’ and we got ‘Love is the path forward.’ It made me feel super good,” he said.
Sawyer was pleased with his sales — 21 cups, which came out to $30 including tips. He’s donating 20% to his school and saving the rest “to buy something expensive.”
Others chose to eat their feelings. As she sipped tea at a post election brunch at Manny’s café in the Mission, Nancy Alpert said she coped with the election by eating leftover Halloween candy and watching comedy shows. “I barely could get out of bed today,” she said. “Right now, it feels a little broken and devastating. We had a qualified candidate. … It’s just beyond.”
In Berkeley, Skyler Chan, a 21-year-old electrical engineering and computer science student from Canada, said he meditated and went for a run the day after the election. “It helped me feel like I got some control back,” he said. Chan, who founded Mars Habitat, a student club that explores the idea of putting 3D printed homes on Mars, said that immigration was at the top of his mind. He feared what might happen to his student visa or his plans to develop a startup.
For Courtney Moore, an acupuncturist and owner of Courtney Moore Acupuncture & Wellness, which has location in the Marina and Noe Valley, the concerns were more immediate. All but one of her appointments on Wednesday were canceled by clients. “People are upset and staying home — they’re retreating like in Covid times,” she said.
Moore was more positive about the local elections, noting that she voted for Daniel Lurie for San Francisco mayor. “He’s also a little bit of a wildcard … but we needed a big change,” she said. “I’m not exactly sure what his plan is, but all my eggs are in that basket.”
At Persimmon a Bay Area medical aesthetics startup that provides on-demand at-home Botox, bookings were up 15% the weeks prior to the election from the previous two weeks. “The mood with some treatments after the election [felt] heavier,” said Charis Solomon, VP of marketing. Perhaps people needed an extra injection of the neurotoxin this week to erase all their frowning.
Back at the Bay Area Smash Room, Moises expects booking numbers to keep skyrocketing. “People are upset and they’re angry,” he said. “That’s not going to change anytime soon.”