Ray Pride

One of the funniest things in the lamest way to my ear is the Canadian provincial tradition of only the government selling beer: to hear a lilt of, "Oh, it's down by the beer store" in a Canadian accent makes me grin like most people when they see a video of a fat boy falling on his bottom or a squirrel shrieking on the way out of a tree into the yard.

Rushing on a sunny Thursday noon across Lake Street to a destination five blocks and ten, twelve minutes away, I want to grab something to eat during the movie screening to come; the first stop's a White Hen, where the prices are high, the readymade sandwiches are gone and a few dozen cases of beer re-stacked high block the drinks aisle. Plus the line ahead is a dozen deep, too: the gambler's line deep with lotto and scratcher fiends, a few construction workers with tall Corona bottles, a couple of bike messengers buying forties.

Too much information: I know a 7-Eleven was nearer my objective. Also nearer street-level hangovers, as it turns out. Tatty sandwich in hand, I take my place behind two men, a jabbering, wild-eyed raincoat man and a dazed-looking dude with deadly bedhead, each with a naked forty in hand, the first of whom asks if I have thirteen cents, and when I say no, the second asks if I can spare a dollar.

The clerk rolls her eyes and murmurs, "Allllll day." Lake Street lunch hour: land of the Chicago beer stores.

(2007-05-07)

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