Every Monday night, or every other Monday night, I throw some pants on and head out to Simon’s, a fine drinking establishment here in the city. This is a tale relating one such adventure, namely the one that occurred tonight.

It all started when I decided to go to Simon’s tonight. I threw on some pants, and some shoes and socks for good measure, and readied myself for an evening of imbibing sweet hooch. As I opened the door to leave, I noticed that my bedroom light was still on. A conscientious conservationist, I reached over to turn the light off, and as I did so, my cat — who lives a horrible life here and (when he is not biting my feet) attempts to bolt at every opportunity, no matter how slight — made a mad dash for the partially open door.

“Oh, no, Snotpockets,” I said. “You’re not going anywhere, buster.” I reached down with my arm to block his path. As I did so, I bashed the top of my head full force against the door jamb.

I stumbled backwards. The cat looked at me with concern, or perhaps schadenfreude. I slammed the door shut and stumbled a few more feet backwards. I walked around in a circle for thirty seconds and then went to the mirror to see if I was bleeding, or possibly seeing any new colors. After determining that the damage was purely internal, I made my way to the train station.

I sat on the platform, waiting for the southbound train. Soon, a train appeared in the distance, then came closer, then approached the station… then blazed right by it without slowing down. “What the fuck?” the waiting crowd said in unison. When the next northbound train arrived, there was a difficult-to-hear announcement coming from within. The announcement repeated. The third time, the announcement came from outside the train: no southbound trains are going to stop at this station. If you want to go south, you have to go north first.

Having hit my head, I found this to be entirely reasonable, even though I ended up waiting at the station for over half an hour.

Soon, I was at Simon’s. I drank two glasses of beer and swore a lot. Nothing out of the ordinary for me.

I took the train home. Oddly, I did not have to go south before I went north. Coming down the stairs from the platform, I followed a very tall black man with very large white sneakers, and for some reason this was notable enough for me to remember. As I passed through the alley on the way back to my apartment, the very same man was standing there, against the wall, having a pee. He had obviously ducked into the alley, thinking no one would see him, well unaware of my regular use of the alley as a handy shortcut. Realizing this, I felt bad that I had intruded upon his peespace, and so, after walking wordlessly past him, I loudly broke wind multiple times, as if to say, “This is an alley where people should be comfortable with their bodily functions. This is an alley where people should be comfortable being people.” He shook himself out in silent approval.

And this is unrelated, but at the library today, a woman called in to address concerns she had over some “overnude notices” she had received in the mail. She hesitated briefly after she said the words in her haughty tone, but did not correct herself. I have laughed each time I have thought about it since. Does that make me immature?