Cordial Invitations: Passengers on the 8:20 Chicago Red Line Train

You and a guest are cordially invited to ooze out of a rag stuck in the drain of a dish sink at a Thai restaurant and sit beside me. Please, begin sorting through an Aldi bag that I think might be full of soiled bandages, take off your shoes, and apply ointment in view of the entire train.

If you hear my inner monologue then you must know I want you to bring your most Tolkienian companion, a crumb of a hobbit of indeterminate gender who is made entirely out of hair and speaks a language of grunts. Maybe it's a dog? An Ewok? A wife? No matter what it is a welcome guest by my side. I ask that you and this hirsute sidekick never get off the train and ride it to the end of the line and back, because I hope to sandwich between you again on my way home.

With regards,

You are cordially invited to speak at maximum volume about Christy. The Potawatomi have a long oral tradition of legends passed down through the ages and I have no doubt Fierce Eagle himself would wish to add to his tribe's epic the story of Christy's party. It would be a special sort of heaven to hear you describe in exacting detail the conversation you had with "Ken, no, the one from Wrigleyville" who "still smokes" and "didn't go to Niles."

I'm begging you, please, pitch up your voice to a shrill clench near the end of every sentence so it sounds like you're petulantly disagreeing even when you aren't. Relate to us third-hand information about Ken's apartment so that cultural anthropologists can confirm the existence of native life in the vicinity of Wrigley Field and not just some proto-human colonial broness that wooooooos its way from El Jardin to Raw Bar. And please, please, please, never end the call. Never.

With regards,