"It's not much of a story," Eli lied. For all that his mother had cried against it, had gone to public school. And, as such, he had ended up taking the inevitable 'stranger danger' class, telling him to avoid suspicious-looking men and women with candy in their trench coats, and to not climb into vans unless he knew the driver, all the things that children took for granted, all the things that so rarely happened to adults. But there needed to be a stranger danger class about how to avoid creepy people in bars, Eli thought. He picked up his Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster and took a drink.
Roughly three quarters of the glass later, though, he was revising his opinion. So far, he hadn't had anyone to really...commiserate with. There was Andy, but if Andy ever met him IRL she'd probably run in the opposite direction, screaming. For all he knew this new and frighteningly-supernatural world was like those books: populated by young, dashingly beautiful men and woman, and older (but still dashing), wiser elder-types. How the hell was he supposed to keep up with that? Especially considering that most of what he had already accomplished (which was, he realized, almost pathetically little) had been due to sheer, dumb luck.
Eli stared morosely at his drink. He was used to it being bright blue. This place just made them kind of vaguely gold-brownish.
"Life sucks," Eli muttered. "Everything hurts. My ribs hurt. My legs hurt. Everything hurts and I'm basically alone in life and I'm carrying a bag full of dead bird parts and dirt in my pocket. How is any of that not fucked up? Jesus, my life's become an awful B-horror movie."