There are a few differences between “the old world” and the “new world”. In the old world the coffee is much stronger, the content on the television has much racier content but violence is much rarer on public the television regardless of the time of day. In the new world a hot cup of tea is more heard of than drunken, extreme efforts are taken to ensure that no part of the human body is exposed on public the television regardless of the time of day, and alcohol is not tolerated on the street – unless it is in a brown paper bag.
It is this last dictate that is also somewhat different in the old world. It might not be a sign of class but it is not illegal to be walking around with a bottle of beer in your hand. I hadn’t been living in the windy city all that long when one night a bunch of us decided to go to a bar reasonably1 close to my apartment. I guess I had one too many and it was actually fairly late, so I decided to walk home. It was summer and the area was safe. Yet I had forgotten to leave my glass on the table when I left so I found myself walking up the street with a glass in my hand.
I really somehow doubt that this would have been a problem if I had just kept on walking but there was a convenience store right there and I thought it might be a good idea to pick up a snack. It still wasn’t a problem, I stopped in and was looking for some beef jerky when a pair of policemen came looking for some beverage to keep them going through the night. It was only then when I had realized where I was and that this might be a problem. So I grabbed my snack and went to pay, however, I did have to set my glass down and that is when those nice policemen happened to be right behind me.
Perhaps it was the clink against the glass but then they asked me what exactly I had in my glass. I picked the best thing I could think of – I came up with lime juice. Well, there was no law against carrying around a glass of lime juice but we both agreed that perhaps I should leave this there and continue on my way.
1Well, walking distance if you find a mile to a mile and half a reasonable distance.