When It Rains, It Snows (Part IV)
I knew this day needed something to perk it up a little. Every day requires at least one bright spot you can look back on when you ask yourself at the end of the day if anything notable was accomplished - if that day was really necessary, as the popular t-shirt put it. Thus, in between my two classes, I traveled to the one place I knew would be a treat for a bloke like me short on money but with a big vintage guitar fetish: Chicago Music Exchange. I never understood people who love vintage cars until I realized it was pretty much the same feeling as loving vintage guitars; the only difference is that vintage guitars are a lot easier to test drive. As my trembling hands took a Rickenbacker 330 6-string with a jetglow finish, rosewood neck and exorbitant price tag off of the wall, I closed my eyes and began indulging my inner Mod. The inner long-haired rock god was appeased with a cherry Gibson SG Double Neck and the country gentleman got his turn to shine with, well, a Gretsch Country Gentleman. Let me tell you; if you play guitar or bass and haven't checked this place out, you owe it to yourself to live vicariously through a couple minutes of playing a vintage but mint hunk o'heaven. The price tags are pretty much what you would expect, but it's still free to stare and play. As long as you don't drool on the finish.
These good vibrations kept going throughout my next class, Rock and Soul on the Radio. This class basically consists of watching music videos with Terri Hemmert (legendary Chicago DJ, fellow Beatle fanatic), and as such isn't what you would call intellectually challenging. It is fun, though, and it keeps me a full-time student, and full-time students get free CTA passes. Halfway through class, after watching a bit of a documentary on gospel and moving onto some vintage blues, the windows began shaking and the unmistakable one-two punch of thunder and lightning assaulted our senses. I glanced out the window and saw a lady wearing a nice pea-coat struggling to keep dry amidst the rain as the wind made her umbrella collapse upon itself. "It's God punishing us for switching from gospel to this secular music!" Terri quipped and the class continued on its merry way. However, when class let out and I glanced out at the pouring rain beating heavily against the windows of the main entrance, I briefly considered that Terri should have saved Robert Johnson for next week and led the class on a singalong of "Amazing Grace."
I've often said that only the bald know how hard it rains. You can read other meanings into that aphorism, but in a purely literal sense it's just as effective. When you're walking through the rain, having a lot of hair acts as an umbrella. Unfortunately, if your long umbrella-hair is curly, the rain tends to straighten it out quite a bit, leaving its length to expand to nearly double of that which dry. If you add glasses to this equation, the fog and moisture that accumulate on the lenses gets to be unwieldy and can necessitate a wish to have windshield wipers installed upon them. I was struggling with the difficulty of navigating across a busy street with such compromised vision when I suddenly felt my socks go damp as I walked into a giant puddle. "Now how did that happen?" I thought to myself. "I've got my big heavy boots on!" But when I removed my glasses and looked at the boots I saw that two large holes had mysteriously formed in the sides of them. As I continued to walk to my train, I heard a faint squelching sound with every step. "The first second I get home," I muttered to myself, "I'm gonna make myself another hot totty." (By now, dear readers, my obsession with the drink must seem troubling. But desperate times call for desperate totties.)
I glanced at my watch to see if I still had time to make the 9:30 train back home; naturally, I had forgotten to reset it and it still read 6:27. I removed the watch and put it in my pocket to prevent any damage from the rain which, by now, had started soaking through my allegedly water resistant jacket. (Thanks a lot, the Gap.) Waterlogged, I trudged down the stairs of Union Station to the sight of a clock informing me cheerily that it was 9:42. Resigned to my fate, I figured that the extra hour between trains would at least be sufficient time to dry my clothing. As I sloshed into the men's bathroom, I waited around for a few minutes before entering. As an intermittent neurotic, I have my fair share of hangups regarding public restrooms. I simply cannot use a urinal with other blokes standing around me; they act as a dam. Of course, the levee breaks as soon as they piss off, but while they're present, I simply cannot do what I came there to do. Or, in the words of my own personal hero Jeff Murdoch, "You need security. You need to be able to say to yourself 'I'm safe! I'm alone! No one's going to walk in and laugh. Mummy's gone to the shops.'"
But I wasn't in there to partake in any bodily fluid activities. No, I had more serious issues to deal with. Namely, I could still barely see out of my glasses. If I cleaned the lenses on my shirt, they would end up just as wet as when I started. But seeing the hand-dryer next to the sink and the paper towel dispenser, I saw my opportunity. After about a minute's blowdrying, my glasses were good as new. Looking at the mirror, though, I realized my hair also needed this treatment. Crouching underneath the dryer, I began tilting my head back and forth, hoping to provide all possible angles of hair with the appropriate amount of heat. In around 5 minutes, I had upgraded my hair from drenched to damp and began to walk out the door.
But as I walked, the telltale squelchiness of my socks told me I still had work to do. I leaned against the sink and tried to kick the left boot off with the right. The dampness had made the boot cling to me, so such a maneuver was impossible. But more importantly, when the toe of my right boot met with the heel of the left boot, I found that it fit into the hole of the boot like a hand in glove. Clearly, these boot-holes had their origin in my attempts to kick them off rather than just unzipping them. I gently mentally rebuked myself, unzipped and removed my foot from the soaking piece of footwear and set about removing my socks. I stopped suddenly when I saw the pinkness of my skin underneath the black socks - I couldn't walk barefoot on this floor. I was in the men's bathroom at the largest train station in Illinois, who knew what disgusting fluids had spilled onto this floor in the past? On the other hand, I couldn't walk around until I got home with those twin squelchers downstairs. I removed the sock the rest of the way and hopped over to the dryer on one foot. Fanning my sock from side to side of the heat and hopping whilst resting my foot on my inner thigh, I must have been quite a sight to behold. I didn't bother to ask the gentleman who entered the room in the midst of this what his impression was. I just waited until he made his way into a stall, re-socked my nude foot and exited sheepishly, squelching all the while.
These good vibrations kept going throughout my next class, Rock and Soul on the Radio. This class basically consists of watching music videos with Terri Hemmert (legendary Chicago DJ, fellow Beatle fanatic), and as such isn't what you would call intellectually challenging. It is fun, though, and it keeps me a full-time student, and full-time students get free CTA passes. Halfway through class, after watching a bit of a documentary on gospel and moving onto some vintage blues, the windows began shaking and the unmistakable one-two punch of thunder and lightning assaulted our senses. I glanced out the window and saw a lady wearing a nice pea-coat struggling to keep dry amidst the rain as the wind made her umbrella collapse upon itself. "It's God punishing us for switching from gospel to this secular music!" Terri quipped and the class continued on its merry way. However, when class let out and I glanced out at the pouring rain beating heavily against the windows of the main entrance, I briefly considered that Terri should have saved Robert Johnson for next week and led the class on a singalong of "Amazing Grace."
I've often said that only the bald know how hard it rains. You can read other meanings into that aphorism, but in a purely literal sense it's just as effective. When you're walking through the rain, having a lot of hair acts as an umbrella. Unfortunately, if your long umbrella-hair is curly, the rain tends to straighten it out quite a bit, leaving its length to expand to nearly double of that which dry. If you add glasses to this equation, the fog and moisture that accumulate on the lenses gets to be unwieldy and can necessitate a wish to have windshield wipers installed upon them. I was struggling with the difficulty of navigating across a busy street with such compromised vision when I suddenly felt my socks go damp as I walked into a giant puddle. "Now how did that happen?" I thought to myself. "I've got my big heavy boots on!" But when I removed my glasses and looked at the boots I saw that two large holes had mysteriously formed in the sides of them. As I continued to walk to my train, I heard a faint squelching sound with every step. "The first second I get home," I muttered to myself, "I'm gonna make myself another hot totty." (By now, dear readers, my obsession with the drink must seem troubling. But desperate times call for desperate totties.)
I glanced at my watch to see if I still had time to make the 9:30 train back home; naturally, I had forgotten to reset it and it still read 6:27. I removed the watch and put it in my pocket to prevent any damage from the rain which, by now, had started soaking through my allegedly water resistant jacket. (Thanks a lot, the Gap.) Waterlogged, I trudged down the stairs of Union Station to the sight of a clock informing me cheerily that it was 9:42. Resigned to my fate, I figured that the extra hour between trains would at least be sufficient time to dry my clothing. As I sloshed into the men's bathroom, I waited around for a few minutes before entering. As an intermittent neurotic, I have my fair share of hangups regarding public restrooms. I simply cannot use a urinal with other blokes standing around me; they act as a dam. Of course, the levee breaks as soon as they piss off, but while they're present, I simply cannot do what I came there to do. Or, in the words of my own personal hero Jeff Murdoch, "You need security. You need to be able to say to yourself 'I'm safe! I'm alone! No one's going to walk in and laugh. Mummy's gone to the shops.'"
But I wasn't in there to partake in any bodily fluid activities. No, I had more serious issues to deal with. Namely, I could still barely see out of my glasses. If I cleaned the lenses on my shirt, they would end up just as wet as when I started. But seeing the hand-dryer next to the sink and the paper towel dispenser, I saw my opportunity. After about a minute's blowdrying, my glasses were good as new. Looking at the mirror, though, I realized my hair also needed this treatment. Crouching underneath the dryer, I began tilting my head back and forth, hoping to provide all possible angles of hair with the appropriate amount of heat. In around 5 minutes, I had upgraded my hair from drenched to damp and began to walk out the door.
But as I walked, the telltale squelchiness of my socks told me I still had work to do. I leaned against the sink and tried to kick the left boot off with the right. The dampness had made the boot cling to me, so such a maneuver was impossible. But more importantly, when the toe of my right boot met with the heel of the left boot, I found that it fit into the hole of the boot like a hand in glove. Clearly, these boot-holes had their origin in my attempts to kick them off rather than just unzipping them. I gently mentally rebuked myself, unzipped and removed my foot from the soaking piece of footwear and set about removing my socks. I stopped suddenly when I saw the pinkness of my skin underneath the black socks - I couldn't walk barefoot on this floor. I was in the men's bathroom at the largest train station in Illinois, who knew what disgusting fluids had spilled onto this floor in the past? On the other hand, I couldn't walk around until I got home with those twin squelchers downstairs. I removed the sock the rest of the way and hopped over to the dryer on one foot. Fanning my sock from side to side of the heat and hopping whilst resting my foot on my inner thigh, I must have been quite a sight to behold. I didn't bother to ask the gentleman who entered the room in the midst of this what his impression was. I just waited until he made his way into a stall, re-socked my nude foot and exited sheepishly, squelching all the while.