Why I Don't Want To Be Homeless.....

I was in the great city of Chicago for New Years Eve and I felt the pain of the homeless for a few short hours. It got me thinking, man they have it rough. I don't know how they do it.

Where to begin? Oh yeah, it all started on New Years Eve around 2:00 a.m. as I was leaving the bar I was at to ring in 2009. For anyone living in a big city, you know the difficulties of getting a cab as the bars close. Well this was kind of like that, but much worse.

First off, it was fucking freezing. I'm not talking chilly, I can handle chilly. This was the kind of brutal cold that makes your ability to speak clearly go bye bye. Of course the bakers dozen red bull and vodkas I had prior to this had already started that process for me. Secondly, I was alone because everyone had decided to go home and I wanted to meet up with my cousin, whom I was staying with, at the bar he was at which was open until 4:00, so it made passing the time in these arctic temps that much harder. And I had these fucking douche bags following me around trying to grab whatever cab I was going for. It's like they had a radar detector and I was beeping like a dump truck driving through a nitroglycerin plant. If I walked 20 feet to a different corner, they followed me and walked an extra 10 to be ahead of me in the invisible cab line. So then I backtracked and walk 30 feet in the other direction thinking I'll find one this way, and what do I find when I look up? Douche bag # two coming my way to get the jump on that corner. I thought I was on candid camera. I'm thinking to myself, are these guys fucking with me?

After about 30 minutes of this I say screw it and begin to hoof it back to my cousin's place on foot. I was talking to him on the phone and he had the same problem I was having but was so cold he stopped in a homeless shelter for some heat, I chose the Pita Pit. From what he described, the clientele in Pita Pit was a much prettier sight than the shelter, although anyone who has seen the type of people in Pita Pit at 3:00 a.m. may disagree. We finally got back to his place around 3:40 a.m., an hour and 40 minutes after I left the bar. I was walking that long. I'm pretty sure my penis was inverted. I honestly have no idea how these bums do it day after day, night after night.

Thinking I don't want to go through anything like that again, I figured that would be the closest I came to homeless in the city while I was there. Man was I wrong. I stuck it out in the city new years day to be around the atmosphere of the Winter Classic hockey game between the Red Wings and Blackhawks. Both mine and my cousin's phone died during the afternoon. We were drinking all day and ended up at the Barleycorn in Wrigleyville. My cuz was much drunker than I was and he tends to be forgetful when this happens. By forgetful I mean he forgot that I was not only with him but staying with him. We were with a few other people and before anyone knew what was happening he hops in a cab and takes off. Poof, gone! Again, the candid camera thing jumped into my head. Keep in mind, we don't have phones that work.

It's about 9:00 p.m. at this point and I am clearly ready to go back and pass out. So I figure, I will cab it back to his place, find a way into his apartment building and hope to god that he left his door unlocked knowing I would be coming back. Steps one and two went according to plan.....three not so much. The little fucker locked his door. I could hear his dumb ass snoring from the hallway. I was banging so loud on the door I thought someone was going to call the cops. After about 20 minutes I give up and sit down in his hallway. I end up passing out right there sitting up against a wall. I wake up and have no concept of time because I wasn't wearing a watch and my phone was dead. I figure it must only be 11:00 p.m. or so, so I decide to leave his building and walk to my friends place to see if I can crash on a couch. I stop in at a 7/11 to find out the time, yup, 4:25 a.m. I slept on that damn hallway floor nearly all night. I can't go ring my friends doorbell right now since she has like five roommates and who knows how many others crashing on her couches. But worst of all I'm now locked out of my cousin's apartment building.

Again, the cold is beginning to hurt my extremities......all of my extremities. I'm cold, tired and beginning to feel sick from the amount of booze I've put in my body over the past three days. I'm supposed to leave when he gets up for work at 7:00 a.m. I consider going to a motel, but I'd rather not spend $150 for two hours. I go back to the 7/11, buy a Gatorade and a paper and sit in the small ass vestibule that separates his apartment building from the front door. The trunk of my Honda Civic is bigger than this thing. And the single pain glass door doesn't exactly keep the cold air outside from making its way in. I'm officially homeless......again.

Around 5:30 a.m., as I'm beginning to get the shakes, I hear the elevator door open. I rise up like the resurrection of Jesus and pretend to be talking on my phone with my cousin so whoever is coming to the front door doesn't think I'm a total retard or burglar. She opens the door as I'm in mid pretend sentence saying something along the lines of "yeah man, weird night, I'll be up in a second....is your elevator still broken?" The elevator was broken earlier that day so I figured this would prove to this girl I'm not trying to rob the place blind.

Out of the goodness in her sweet heart she lets me in. My feet begin to thaw. I go up to his apartment and notice the snoring is done. I knock twice and hear him yell, "Jeff?" I respond with "OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR!" He opens it and with a dismayed look on his face says "what happened last night, how did we get separated?" I didn't even entertain him with a response. I got on his futon and proceeded to attempt to fall asleep for the hour and half that I had left.

Ordinarily, a three day booze binge that includes eating nothing but fried foods and destroying numerous brain cells does not teach you much, but in my case it taught me three things:
1) Always bring a phone charger
2) My cousin is retarded
3) If I'm going to be homeless, make damn sure it's in a warm weather location......so much easier on the testicles.