It’s not like that, I swear. For crying out loud, I’m a married man! Nonetheless, this weekend gave me some of the best times with random girls I’ve had in a while. Here’s how it all went down…

Saturday night: I was on the Blue line heading downtown to hang out with Rick Mizfield. At the Harlem stop, a girl who looked to be about 21, got on the train. She was all kinds of skanked out, rocking the tube top under her parka. Black fishnet stockings stretched from the bottom of her tiny, black skirt to the top of her mid-calf, white, f-me boots. Despite her outfit, you could tell she was cold and uncomfortable. She sat next to the window, kind of curled up, her downcast eyes saying “Please don’t look at me.” Her outfit screamed look at me, but the look on her face said she’d only feel comfortable once she was chugging jaggermeister and pretending to fend off the awkward sexual advances of drunken, leering frat boys.

Anyway, as she clomp, clomp, clomped onto the train and slinked into her seat, two middle-aged women in TSA jackets, obviously heading home from a shift at the airport, stopped their conversation and stared. As settled into her seat, they began speculating in not-so subtle tones about what that girl’s mother would think if she saw her, all the while shooting disapproving sideways glances at her.

As the doors shut, a message came over the loudspeaker. If you’ve been on a CTA bus or train lately, you’ve heard it at nearly every stop. “Gambling and soliciting is not allowed on CTA vehicles. We request your cooperation.”

As the message ended, one of the ladies turned around and said “Did you hear that dear? No solicitation on the train.”

The girl, who you could tell was already uncomfortable, curled up and looked like she wanted to be anywhere else in the world — Iraq, Siberia, Afghanistan, anywhere but that seat on that train near those ladies.

Later that night, Mizfield and I were at a bar enjoying a beer or 10. We’d ended up at a place right near his house, choosing to avoid Wrigleyville and all the freaking hipsters in their stupid Christmas sweaters. Apparently there was a bar crawl called the 12 bars of Christmas that promised to bring out every dirty, skinny jeans-wearing idiot in the city I was sure to hate and try to fight.

So as we’re sitting there, a group of said morons drunkenly stumbles in wearing horrible Christmas sweaters. We all have an aunt or uncle who wears red cardigans with reindeer and snowmen and glitter. This is what these people were wearing.

So one of the guys walks up to our table and just stares at us. The guy was beyond hammered, so was just kind of swaying from side-to-side, his mouth agape, staring at our bucket of beer.

Me: What’s up?
Drunk guy: …
Mizfield: Can we help you?
Drunk guy: …
Me: Dude, go away.

So the guy stumbles off, no harm done. Next thing we knew though, he was freak dancing some girl in an equally ridiculous Christmas sweater. This guy was catatonic just seconds earlier, and now all of a sudden he’s busting a move like he’s on Soul Train. Now keep in mind, there wasn’t really a dance floor in this place, it was more the kind of place you sit, have a beer and watch a football game. That, of course, didn’t stop these drunk idiots from pretending like they were at their own private dance club.

So they danced for a few minutes and the guy, looking like he was about to get another look at all the booze he’d been drinking, headed off for the bathroom. The girl re-joined her friends at the bar.

Next thing we knew, two bouncers are literally carrying this guy out the front door of the bar. He’s kind of struggling and pleading his innocence, to no avail. As they carried him past his friends, instead of asking what is going on or trying to help, they just wave. “Bye Kevin!” and watch him get tossed out on his ass as the freezing rain poured down on him.

A few minutes later, Don’t Stop Believing came on the jukebox and the girl he’d been dancing with appeared at the end of our booth. She was serenading us, singing into an imaginary microphone.

“C’mon, I know you know the words!” she said as she held the imaginary microphone to our mouths. We just stared back at her.

It quickly became apparent that we weren’t singing, so she started trying to talk to us, asking a question then leaning back to belt out the next line of the song.

Drunk girl: So are you guys having fun tonight? Street lights! People! Ooooooh!
Me: I don’t want to talk to you, every guy I’ve seen you with tonight has gotten kicked out.
Drunk girl: So where are you from? Singer in a smokey room. Smell of wine and cheap perfume!
Me: Ummm…Detroit.
Drunk girl: Are you a Lions fan? I feel bad for you if you are. Some will win, some will lose, some were born to sing the blues! Oh the movie never ends, it goes on and on and on and on.

It went on like this for several minutes. Mizfield and I weren’t really participating, just kind of sitting there laughing at her. Finally she looked at us and just said “OK, I’m bored with you guys. Nice talking to you” and walked away.

Sunday…
Suss and I headed out to the local Applebees for dinner. We sat down and our waitress, who looked to be about 22 or so, walked up and asked us how we were. “All right,” we replied. “How are you?”

“I’m not so good,” she said. “I’ve had a long day. I’m working a double and I got like an hour of sleep last night.”

Strange response, to be sure, but combine the facts that she works at a restaurant, she’s young and she works in a small town and you can almost guarantee that her time is divided evenly between work and partying.

Anyway, she continued. “My friends called me at like 3 a.m. and I had to go bail them out of jail.”
Suss and I: !!!
Waitress: Yeah, I got a call in the middle of the night saying it was the county jail and that I had to come get my friends. I told them I had to wait because I couldn’t go get them right then, if you know what I mean. I had to drink a bunch of water before I could go up there.

She was a chatty one, to be sure. She told us how she likes to party but is trying to stop. Yet she also told us how she had plans to go drinking after she got off of work. Oh, and she like Jolly Ranchers.

At one point she walked up and saw that Suss and I hadn’t finished our drinks yet.

“Why aren’t you finished with your drinks yet?” she asked indignantly >. “I was going to get you refills, I’m bored.”

She was a trip. I’m sure we’ll go back sometime this week to see her again. If you’re ever hungry in Pekin, Ill., go to Applebees and ask to sit in Sarah with an H’s section. You won’t regret it.