Saturday, March 16, 2013
Saint Elsewhere
I can tell I'm getting old because I'm starting to resent it when other people are having fun. Well, mainly when other people are getting drunk and screaming in my alley or playing their music so loudly that the whole building is shaking from the bass, but still. I feel like that lady who shushed me and my sister at the PTA Summer Movie Series showing of Big when I was ten. (It was right before the scandalous "bra scene" that created such a ruckus among Quincy parents.) There was a time in my life when I was the one having ridiculous roof parties that kept my neighbors awake until all hours of the night and caused bits of Jell-O shot to be ground into the carpet in the lobby, but apparently that time is no more.
This observations are, of course, occasioned by St. Patrick's Day, which seems to last a full week here in Chicago. So far today, I have had no fewer than six drunk people hit my buzzer, either laboring under some misapprehension about my identity or mistakenly believing that I run a youth hostel. I sat in my car on the street outside my house for ten minutes because so many people were hailing cabs that traffic was actually not moving. And there is vomit on my front lawn. Suffice it to say that this has not been my favorite holiday.
I'm hoping that tomorrow will be better because it is, after all, the lord's day, but my fear is that the lord gave up on St. Patrick's Day a long time ago. Regardless, it might be a good idea for me to invest in some earplugs.
I can tell I'm getting old because I'm starting to resent it when other people are having fun. Well, mainly when other people are getting drunk and screaming in my alley or playing their music so loudly that the whole building is shaking from the bass, but still. I feel like that lady who shushed me and my sister at the PTA Summer Movie Series showing of Big when I was ten. (It was right before the scandalous "bra scene" that created such a ruckus among Quincy parents.) There was a time in my life when I was the one having ridiculous roof parties that kept my neighbors awake until all hours of the night and caused bits of Jell-O shot to be ground into the carpet in the lobby, but apparently that time is no more.
This observations are, of course, occasioned by St. Patrick's Day, which seems to last a full week here in Chicago. So far today, I have had no fewer than six drunk people hit my buzzer, either laboring under some misapprehension about my identity or mistakenly believing that I run a youth hostel. I sat in my car on the street outside my house for ten minutes because so many people were hailing cabs that traffic was actually not moving. And there is vomit on my front lawn. Suffice it to say that this has not been my favorite holiday.
I'm hoping that tomorrow will be better because it is, after all, the lord's day, but my fear is that the lord gave up on St. Patrick's Day a long time ago. Regardless, it might be a good idea for me to invest in some earplugs.
