Good Sandwich

What food here is good to eat?

And the middle-aged, middle eastern lady standing behind the counter says, "Everything is good." Bold statement. I don't let her off easily and order the veggie sandwich: no meat to hide behind. I wish I could eat this sandwich now, but I need to go outside and wait for the bus going the wrong way.

Nearly every morning, I take the 145 bus south to downtown. Today, as I wait on the opposite side of the road, I get a brief chance to bask in the glow of that wonderful star that warms our planet. The bus pulls up, I jump over the gutter puddle, and get on.

About two stops down (or up, rather) the route, these two women with their two daughters get on the bus. "I love having fun on the bus, Mommy!" shouts one of the girls at the top of her lungs. "Buses aren't for having fun, dear. They're for sitting," her mother replies.

When did living life stop being fun?

Our bus passes a church with a nativity scene on display outside - it's only five months until Christmas. One of these little girls says to the other, "Let's pray for Jesus." They dive into a rehearsed ritual of prayer said both in Spanish and English. Flawless and synchronized, they wrap up their perfect performance with the traditional Catholic cross across the chest.

Brainwashing. That's all there is to it. These girls aren't more than six years old: they are completely incapable of comprehending the concept of what believing in higher power could possibly mean.

On the train, I listen to this couple behind me make love with their voices. The train comes to the Glencoe stop, and this couple suddenly realizes that they need to get off at this stop. The girl makes it off the train and the guy does not. The guy gets off at the next stop and begins to desperately search for a way to find his girlfriend. Luckily for him, it's Ravinia night and these cooler-toting suburbanites will be taking a path north to Ravinia Park. He will see them taking that path, and he'll take it south to where his girlfriend is.

Further down the line at another stop, I watch a man pick up a chunk of concrete and place it in a pile of other chunks of concrete. For no reason. He was just so OCD that he couldn't leave that lonely chunk of concrete be. I also notice the Starbucks in the front of the Jaguar dealership. Our train is running roughly eight minutes late due to "heavy passenger traffic". The man behind me quips, "Yeah...I thought I saw a few more fat asses on this train than usual."

In the car ride back to Kenosha, I'm able to decompress a little bit. This sandwich is really good.

Sorry That My Phone's Been Off

With laptop bag in hand, I sauntered around my morning corner to the bus stop. I glanced down at my pants with a great deal of frustration: the bottoms of my black Aeropostale jeans refuse to remain over the top of my shoes and seem to instead prefer tucking themselves into the flaps of my black loafers. This feeling of frustration floods my mind with memories of the last time I had this problem with these pants and these shoes.

Since Sunday night, I've felt a wide range of emotions.

Anger-
I hope those motherf*****s get shot in their legs and lay on the sidewalk and bleed to death.

Fear-
Dude...do you realize how close I was to dying?

Frustration-
ARGH! I wish I would've done something!

And...of course...humor-
We were six blocks away from Barack Obama's house, the most secure homestead in America, and we got held up at gun point. Haha!

It feels weird feeling emotions again because I was so apathetic about so many things for so long as a result of a rough school year. It's the same feeling that you see when you watch an old garden hose get used at the first sign of Spring, it's the same feeling you hear when your joints complain in the morning, and it's the same feeling you feel when you spend time with an old and almost-forgotten friend.

I remained completely calm when it was happening: I remained totally unflustered. I heard something along the lines of "Sonuvabitch" or "Aw, shit" said in a very pedestrian way, as though my friend had just realized he spilled something on his nice button-up shirt. I turned around to see that monster machine of metal with its cold, dead weight and unequivocal efficiency. It was spun around in front of my face and the faces of my friends.

"Don't worry. I ain't gunna shoot you or nuthin' like that."

Then, why the fuck do you have a gun?

I remained totally calm, did what they said, gave them my wallet, gave them my cell phone, and faced the other direction and walked.

It wasn't until I got home that night that these emotions hit me, and it wasn't until my jeans tucked themselves into my shoes this morning that I fully realized what happened and how I was reacting to it.