St. Patty's Day Shenanigans

So truth be told I really just wanted to use the word Shenanigans in a post title (is that so wrong) - though I actually do have a rather amusing story to tale about an encounter I had Saturday night.

Now wait a second, Monday was St. Patrick's day - how dare I talk about another night considering the post title, well (in case you didn't know) seeing as this year the holiday fell during Holy week the official celebration (the parades, river dyeing here in Chicago, et al) happened Saturday so it's all kosher.

So the majority of fake St. Patty's day I actually spent fairly sober and in one of two of the improv theaters up here in Chicago. I started off the day at iO where I had class managed to grab some dinner afterwards and fight the Wrigleyville crowds to make my way up to the Annoyance where I had to help run tech for a show from 7pm - 10pm. After the show (which ran a little long, but otherwise went very well) I spent the next two hours making up for lost time hanging out in the wonderful bar attached to the theater (go there sometime grab a drink catch the show, you'll thank me - go on a Saturday, you can either catch the show I work on at 8pm - or at 10pm there's the funniest Burlesque show you'll ever see with loads of Beautiful and talented ladies...and at midnight you can watch a bunch or rather drunk and hilarious guys strip and perform).
Anyway I ended up running into a fair number of people I knew while celebrating, about half of whom were scheduled to perform at midnight back down at iO.
Well when they left for the show I followed and continued the celebration back at that theater until I was booted out the door around 3am when they were closing.

And now on to the weird encounter:

So I'm walking home through Wrigleyville (which has just been ravaged by hundreds of drunk people wearing green) rather out of it from all of the celebrating when suddenly I hear a voice from across the street yelling at me: "Hey, hey wait up..."

I stop and turn and it takes me a second to spot a woman running across the street towards me. Well I wait for her to catch up to me trying to figure out who the hell she is. She gets to me and it's pretty dark on the street and I just can't place her for the life of me (I assume I have to know her because what stranger would call me out on a deserted street at 3am unless they were mugging me).
We start chit chatting, basically her asking me "Where I'm running off to so fast.." and I have no idea who she is (I'm thinking maybe someone from a class, another intern at the theater, random high school friend I don't recall). And then finally I tell her I'm heading home which is when she asks:
"Well am I invited Big Guy..."

So at this point I take a step back and really look her up and down .... definitely a fair bit older than me, knee high boots, fishnets over tights, short leather shorts, coat a little ragged and she's playing with the zipper (mind you it's 3o degrees out), bad make-up ... oh shit clearly she's a prostitute and not even an appealing one at that.

The first thought that goes through my head is: If a cop pulled up right now there would be no way in the world to explain my way out of this. My second though was what kind of shabby prostitute has to run down a potential John on the street by yelling for him to stop? My third thought was how out of it do you have to be to not recognize you're being solicited by a damn prostitute?

I let her no that I'm sorry but she is not invited back and turn to leave - only to have her follow me about half a block trying to hard sell me on inviting her home (note to the kids: the more desperate a prostitute the more likely she has an STD...and a drug addiction).


So I've finally encountered my first Chicago Lady of the Night and on fake St. Patrick's Day - I feel more and more at home here all the time.