Just when I say I'm getting fully comfortable in this city and it poses me fewer challenges and headaches, I go on the walk from hell.

I only wanted to be gone for about a little over an hour. I was gonna walk all the way down to the Clark and Lake Blue line stop (about three miles) and take the train back home. Leave by nine, be back home in bed writing by no later than 10:30.

The walk downtown itself was uneventful. Taking back streets to look at some of the new homes I'd never seen before, I only passed a couple other human beings until I got to the river on Halsted.

Farther down the way, though, things got frustrating. I needed to get some cash for the train ride home since my cards were all empty, and I only had a buck and change on me. So I stopped by a CVS to buy something cheap and get $5 cash back (I'm tired of racking up unnecessary ATM fees and having to take twenty bucks out of the bank when I only need a couple. You can do that at drug stores.) But just as I rolled up to the place (9:03 p.m.), I noticed the lights shutting off. It closed three minutes ago.

Fuck.

Frustrated, I keep heading east thinking I'll see another CVS or a Walgreen's that's deeper into downtown, or at least a National City ATM (my bank). No luck. The Walgreen's by the train stop had just closed, too. I turned around to see if the White Hen catty corner from it is open. Nope. It's out of business.

Fuck.

I realize I've got a couple old CTA fare cards in my wallet and figure it's at least worth the try to see if there's enough money on them combined with the change in my pocket to get me home. I walk in, put the first card in and it says I've got 55 cents left on it. Hmm. I reach into my pocket, pull out the buck and realize I've got more change than I thought — maybe $1.45 worth. I pump the buck and change in and I'm ... five cents short.

Motherfuck.

Being a borderline tight-ass with absolutely nothing else to do, I figure I'll just walk around for a while and see if I can't find a nickel on the ground. There's so many business people flocking to downtown on a daily basis it can't take that long to find five cents laying around, right? Wrong. The panhandlers in this city have wiped its streets absolutely fucking clean of any lose change there ever was. I walked around for about twenty minutes and didn't even see so much as a god damn penny.

By now this was turning into a much lengthier endeavor than I'd originally budgeted it for, so I broke down and hit up the first ATM I could find for a $20 spot and went McDonald's for a soda to break it up. Went back to the train stop, put my nickel in to fill my card up to the mandatory $2 (all that work for a fucking nickel!) and headed down to the subway.

"Ah, home free," I thought to myself on the escalator.

I got to the tracks and I waited. And waited. And waited. Then waited some more. I had gotten to the train stop at 10:40, and I when I first looked down at the clock on my cell phone it read 11:10. I'd spent over two hours on this stupid walk, and spent 30 minutes waiting for this stupid train. I couldn't tell which pissed me off more.

It was as if the city was punking me. "Really?," I felt it was saying to me. "You've got living here down-pat, huh? Got it all figured out. No problems for you anymore. Everything's just a walk in the park these days, right? Well take this motherfucker!"

Just then I heard the low rumble of the north bound train off in the distance, and shortly after saw the gleam of its bright yellow lights reflect off the track.

I was overcome with a sense of relief. "Finally," I sighed to myself.

And as I boarded the train I coulda swore I felt the hand of the city patting me on the back like I was a young man that had just spoken up to his parents as though he new everything, and there was nothing more he could learn from them.

"Right buddy," the city was saying. "You're still our little bitch."