Chicago: the city that works and then goes to bed early

Mirrored from brigidkeely.com/wordpress.

I’m picking up temp work on the weekend, Saturday nights to be exact. It’s interesting work. I’m riding Metra trains and counting passengers as they get on and off. I have some stories about this work and the people I’ve encountered (passengers) but hesitate to post them because duh, I’m at work and that might not be professional. Let us just say that my disgust for grown ass men who get slobberingly drunk and piss themselves and just barely refrain from crossing the line to actual sexual assault is as great as ever. WHO KNEW.

I got off work at Union Station at 10:00 PM. I was essentially right down town, and I was hungry since I hadn’t eaten anything since a late lunch (I’d thought there’d be a shop open at the end of the train line; there was not and I had no cash for the numerous vending machines). Nothing was open. When I say nothing, I mean I passed 2 McDonald’s and they were both closed. Giordano’s, my back up choice (oh NO forced to eat good tasty pizza OH THE HUMANITY) was closed. The Chinese take out place was closed. Jimmy John’s was closed. The Italian Beef place was closed. Panera Bread and The Corner Bakery (which was, I need to point out, NOT ON A CORNER) were closed. Walgreen’s was closed. CVS was closed.

7-11 was not closed.

I popped in there, surrounded by tourists and teen agers with time to kill*, and debated my choices. I could get a roller hot dog. Or I could get a bag of pizza-flavored combos. Which offered the best combo of taste and nutrition? Which was most likely to not leave me doubled over in pain? Which was most likely to sate my hunger?

Bag of pizza-flavored combos it was.

I just want to say that I am 31 and no longer able to really subsist on a dinner consisting of a bag of pizza flavored combos. I had the worst stomach problems this morning, and gut pain for about half the night.

Next Saturday I’m packing a sandwich and some snacks. That is for certain.

*I was reminded of my own teen aged times. Apparently hangin’ out “late” at night is pretty much the same in the Suburbs of Chicago and the city itself. There is nothing open, so you wander around the streets in an ill formed pack talking about where to go and what to do, only there’s no place to go and nothing to do, so you sit on some steps someplace and talk some more and then wander into a 7-11 and walk around and then go back out to wander the streets.

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