After being in New York the past four years, I was really pretty sure that I had seen everything.  Turns out I hadn't.  Over the weekend I was in Chicago for the Chicago Improv Festival and there was a party at iO (an improv theatre, for non-Chicago folks) Saturday night.  I was waiting outside for some friends when a homeless-looking man approached me.  There are some display cases in front of the theatre where they display show posters and whatnot, and this homeless-looking man reached on top of them and grabbed a white paper bag.  I assumed he was just scrounging around for food remnants, but from the white paper bag he pulled a small stack of bootlegged DVDs.  I wasn't really in the market for a pirated copy of Norbit, but even if I had been I was too preoccupied with what the hell had just happened.  Did that guy really store his goods (what I imagine is his primary way of making a living) outside on top of an improv theatre's display case? That could be the case, but what I like to imagine happened is that the pirated DVDs actually belonged to a drunk Cubs fan who was trying to go to the Red Ivy, but as he stumbled in the bouncer wouldn't allow him to enter with the white paper bag, which he assumed contained food.  So, not sure of what to do in this dilemma, his quick thinking comes up with the plan to store the bag on top of the display cases in front of iO.  Whilst at the Red Ivy the guy has a bit too much to drink, and forgets that he left his sack of bootlegged DVDs on top of the display cases next door.  Fastforward to two weeks later, where a homeless-looking guy scrounges on top of the display case for some forgotten morsels of food when all of a sudden he comes across a bag of DVDs.  He tries selling them to a stylish and savvy looking New York type (I'm totally describing myself there) but she turns him down.  He then encounters a drunk Cubs fan...the SAME drunk Cubs fan, who just happens to be in the market for pirated DVDs.  And the cycle continues.

*I have pored entirely too much time and thought into this very minor, unimportant element of my trip to Chicago.*

 

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