Monday at lunchtime.
I went to Salad Spinners for lunch on Wabash and Monroe and as usual they were backed up for about twenty minutes. Great salads, but it takes for-fuckin-ever to get your order. While I was waiting, Jim Brockman passed me, but I didn't recognize him until ten minutes after I left. He had a goatee, but otherwise was the same. My order came up a minute or so after he walked past me, and I don't think he saw me; we didn't acknowledge each other. Just for those of you (most of you) who don't know Jim, let me give you some background information:
Jim and I had photography class together Junior year. He would routinely sneak up behind me in the dark hallway to the darkroom and attempt to strangle me with paper towels. Not a roll, but a wad. It was joke-strangling, but still.... After a few times, it kinda gave me a complex.
Jim also attempted to get me, Mary and Maffia to go to the Rocky Horror Picture Show for a full semester. You've all heard about those debaucherous screenings that are populated by crazies. That's the last place I want to go at midnight on a Saturday.
During a gym final one semester, Jim said that he wanted to create a sub-genre of the booming porn industry that would entirely consist of fat bald women "head-fucking" each other. And then he would demonstrate his vision in mime-like fashion.
He used to work at the LaGrange Theater and warned us never to eat the popcorn there. I forget why, but to this day I don't give it a second thought as I walk past the concession stand.
He's got one wicked sense of humor.
After I got back with my salad to my building, I got in the elevator and in came this woman with a huge bag of pork rinds. As we spent our short time together in the vertical shoebox, she would take handfuls of the rinds and stuff them in her mouth. She did this twice on my ride from floors one to two, and I can't imagine how quickly she demolished the whole bag.
Then about twenty minutes later, I was walking past the elevator bank when one of the lifts opened for someone to get out. The person left in the elevator was Mr. Edwards, a family friend of Mary's, whom I see occasionally (like at church on Ash Wednesday downtown) but rarely speak to. We made eye contact as I walked through the elevator bank and he gave me his customary "you're-a-spy-and-I'm-a-spy-but-no-one-can-know-we're-spies" covert head nod. It's almost like what Dr. Claw would do if we ever saw his face. He finished his head nod right as the elevator doors closed. That guy has great timing.
What a strange barrage of people for a Monday.
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