Elevated Trains and Drinking with Co-Workers
My apartment is sandwiched in between two Chicago "EL" train stops on the green and the blue line. Come about 10pm at night on the far westside of Chi-town they usually aren't the safest options, but it's one of those situations where you hide your credit cards, put a minimal amount of cash in your wallet, and hop on the train with the understanding that it would still be cheaper to get mugged on the "EL" then take a cab into the city. When its later at night and you're taking the train, it is all about safety in numbers. I don't care if there's a guy with one leg asking me for a dollar "fiddy" so he can buy a plastic flask of "Uncle Johnny's extra strong whiskey" at the corner liquor store, or a rather large women with crossed eyes and buck teeth who appears to be talking to herself. If someone is going to stab you and take your wallet, they are much more likely to do it when no one else is there watching it go down.(at least I like to think that)
Anyways after a long, grueling, backbreaking, headache inducing, fucking brutal week of work, myself and some colleagues went out for some post-work drinks. You know the drill. You go to the bar with the intention of having a couple drinks and keeping your guard up the entire time but before you know it you are telling all your co-workers your life story as well as really lame inside jokes about paperwork and conference calls. And after 2 drinks you have you tie loosened up, and after about 8 drinks it's possibly tied around your forehead. And after 10 you're waving your paycheck around in the air, saying "a round of shots on me."
And as you hop on the "El" and sober up about half the way home you kind of wish some one would stab you, right there on the spot, or at least that the old guy sitting in the back corner of the train would give you a huge swig from that flask of whiskey of his.
Cause Lord knows, you're gonna be the hottest gossip in front of the water cooler Monday morning.