At the gates of the alcohol...

So, last night I was standing with some unsavory characters in front of a liquor store, a few minutes after closing. We had lamented our bad luck and planning when two women approached the doors. We informed them that the store was closed. What ensued surprised the hell out of me. They all but wept. They prostrated themselves on the inactivated automatic door and began hitting the plastic and calling out to the clerks still inside the store. The more they were ignored, the more loud and desperate their calls became. They became frantic worshippers before the monstrous neon LCBO idol, gnashing their teeth in a gesture of atonement for their unworthiness. Even my borderline-alcoholic friend found it pathetic. Why this reaction? Surely, it being a gay old Saturday in the downtown, they could get boozed up at a hundred different bars, moreover they could probably get eager, lonely men to pay for the greater portion of it.

Maybe a few blocks over, their domineering boyfriends had made them an ultimatum. If they did not obtain intoxication for the lot of them they would leave for greener pastures, for looser girls, maybe even for Church Street. Maybe. We left feeling slightly better about ourselves. Slightly.

Thought for the "day": "if you want to weep, don't do it in a corner, where your tears will collect in an insignificant puddle. Instead, go out into the crowd and project your problems; sprinkle your grievances liberally across your guests, the couch, the carpet, the punch-bowl. Then rake in the sympathy."