Crazy Creepers Are Up Early Too

There are some absolutely wonderful things about living in Chicago. Street fairs, art, music, hot boys, and great food all make this city magical. But I can verify for you now that random strangers on the street are not one of those magical things about Chicago. In fact, they tend to be the thing that makes me want to move out of this city.

When my mom and stepdad were in town, they had a tendency to say "Hi!" to every person we walked by. Didn't matter if they were raggedy street thugs or uppity snobs, they smiled politely and greeted everyone... And were promptly ignore by 85% of the people they greeted. See, their from the rural South, where greeting people is the norm. Chances are you've met that person, and if not yet, you might someday so why not be nice to them now, right? Which is fine for panhandle Florida, but not so fine here.

Here in Chicago if a random stranger smiles at me and says hi, or anything really, I KNOW the next thing out of their mouth is "Do you have any money?". As such, Chicagoans have developed a keen ability to ignore everyone. It's a truly amazing skill, and one that has probably saved our lives in more occasions than we care to admit. The only people that respond to random strangers are tourists.

So it was this morning that I was heading to the gym. I get up way too early to go to the gym before work, so usually there's no one on the streets. But as luck would have it, there was one wide awake, crazy-eyed creep on a corner that I pass by to get to the gym. He sees that I'm checking my email on my phone as I walk by and then asks if he can use my phone for a quick call.

... I don't even make eye contact with random ass people on the street, I highly doubt I would ever let some stranger touch my fucking phone! Besides, who the hell are you calling at 5:20 am?

So I give him my standard "no" answer (admittedly with some attitude) and keep walking. Most creeps just move one and start harassing the next person, but not this guy. No, he wanted to try and make me feel bad for not letting him use my multi-hundred dollar phone. So he starts screaming at the top of his lungs:

"Fucking faggot! Honkey ass, racist faggot! I ought to slap upside your KKK head, teach your faggoty ass a lesson! Goddamn faggot with your pretty little phone, I bet that shit's pink like you faggoty ass!" And so on and so forth. I could still hear him two blocks away.

Now I don't know if he was just bored, so that's why he hollered after me, or maybe the lack of other people to harass at 5:20 am on the street was his impetus to keep yelling at me, but whatever it was that inspired him to think that I'd let His Royal Trashiness use my phone had to either be severely psychotic or really fucked up on various and sundry drugs.

Luckily the dude was harmless. He just kept yelling, but didn't follow. But still... It made for an interesting morning.