“I went to this fucking barn dance last year, like over the summer. It was pretty tight.”
The May 18, 2010, Sun-Times wasn’t particularly memorable.
“There’s a new pool that just opened. My cousin told me about it. You have to be 21 to get in and it’s like a party all day.”
There was some trial coverage of a suburban hit-and-run, some AP wire on the BP spill. People were upset Obama’s dog was pricy.
“Once you take her back you’ll have, like, the upper hand.”
Yet I’ve kept this paper for more than two years. It’s not because I care about GM’s quarterly profits or 1-across on the crossword puzzle (it was “Samson”), but because that’s where I wrote down some of the most idiotic things I’ve ever overheard on the Metra.
“Don’t go on a train to the city to a Cubs game if you don’t want to hear profanity. Because I will say ‘fuck.’”
It was a group of college kids, all young and strong and, I’m sure, gorgeous. I couldn’t see much more than flashes of Cubbie blue and Old Style tallboys from my upper-level perch.
“Don’t be such a pretty boy — you’re a rugby player.”
“Lacy was in the room, on the floor.”
“Do you know how drunk Mac got?”
I could hear them, though, and that was better. I learned one still had Brooke’s name on the back burner. Another “didn’t get in a fight. I got punched.” A third’s father “always said you never waste your money on food,” proving the condition is hereditary.
“She went to her first day on the job and saw all these hot accounting dudes.”
“You think I’m fucking around? I’m going on a sexual rampage.”
“Actually, I’m in a business fraternity.”
There is more to these Tucker Mins than I’m saying, of course. The one did seem broken up over the girl. His friend did seem to want to cheer him.
“It’s to hook up with more girls than she hooks up with guys before you take her back. You’ve got to win.”
But then there’s that.
In one of his 1001 stories, Ben Hecht wrote “Journalism is incomplete without its moral or at least its overtones of morals.”
So here’s my quick moral for the business frat pretty boys, now probably graduated and hot accounting dudes in their own rights: If you’re going to be idiots in public, someone might write it down.
Written April 2012
