This past summer I was at the Pilsen Food Truck Social, enjoying a Chocrute Kabob from Dusek’s Board & Beer and reading Chicago reclusive author Clive Javanski’s latest essay, “Am I Some Kind of Asshole?” when Mosquito walked over.

Mosquito, also known as Monkey Wrench or Spider, is a longtime acquaintance who does work on my Jeep and many other friends’ cars. He’s our group’s mechanic. Mechanic of the assholes.

His hands are perpetually dirty but he gets the job done.

He doesn’t go on the Internet a lot but when he does it’s usually odd. Like the time when he found a dead mole in his backyard and was perplexed by it. He said he went online to see if moles have eyes.

Mosquito also likes to talk to girls online even when he’s not sure they are girls and sometimes he sends them money and other gifts . He does this even if they live in Ghana and the entire thing is probably a scam.

So Mosquito interrupts me on this wonderful food truck day while I was chatting up a brainy, long-legged Pakistani girl named Nyya who had cute nose freckles and was eating a Chorizo slider. We were talking about her studies at the University of Chicago, and how she can “smell math.”

“Holy cow,” he said. “My name is on a board in Russia.”

It’s fine. I knew I’d be confused about this.

Mosquito said he got a phone call from a woman in Russia. It was one of many he’s gotten lately. They all want money from him. They offer nude photos, their hand in marriage, or dirty talk. One wanted to send him her soiled panties. One time a man called, and asked Mosquito if he wanted a virtual hand job.

I met Aidan even later that night at my apartment. He had just written a new Christmas song, “Twerkin’ Urchins,” for our planned holiday EP.

I don’t know if it’s along the lines of the classic Christmas pop gem, “Merry Christmas Will Do,” by Chicago’s own Material Issue, but it has potential.

Aidan also had a bag of drugs with him. He said they belonged to one of his girlfriends, Cassie.

“Cassie’s drugs,” he said.

She left them at his apartment last night while they were writing songs together.  As he left my place to return the drugs to Cassie, I yelled out the door that it would make a good song title for the new record. “Cassie’s Drugs.”

As he ran down Medill Avenue he shouted “Cassie’s Christmas Drugs.”

“It’s a fucking holiday album,” he said.