Halloween. 2021. Midnight. It was a dark and stormy night. Or it wasn't. Unlike most stories involving the work schedule of our heroine, our brave Brazilian flight attendant, the weather has no bearing on this tale. What does bear, what proves critical to the misadventures Jacqueline Barbosa de Sa would soon endure, is that she was given the night off, and, with this newfound freedom, on the scariest night of the year, with the scariest of intentions in mind, Jackie, dressed in her scariest Rosie the Riveter costume, and with her scariest friends in tow (shoutout Luana!), decided to go to the scariest bar they could find: Haligan's.

Some hours before Jackie made this fateful choice, the sinister slob of Lincoln Park, Pete Higgins, was making his own choice: whether to put minimum effort into a Halloween costume or wear a normal shirt. He opted for the minimum effort, threw on a Bears sweater, shaved a mustache, stuffed a cigar in his mouth, and went out as Bob Dobrowski (aka himself). That he would go to Haligan had already been determined -- days, weeks, months ago; during this time Pete was going to Hal's all the time (and it was a football Saturday, so, duh). He headed over in the late afternoon, eschewing dinner and opting for trail mix instead, then met his former roommates (future security guards) Taylor and Steve at the bar.

What, exactly, occurred over the next few hours has been lost to time and mystery. Whether Pete, Taylor, and Steve had any fun at the bar, or even spoke more than 10 words to each other, is unknown. What went so wrong in Jackie's life that she ended up at a sports bar with sticky floors and cheap Coors Light is similarly forgotten (or edited out for brevity). What is known, what does matter to our tale, is what happened when Jackie stepped foot inside Haligan and saw Pete sitting at the end of the bar, staring at the TV and shoveling trail mix in his mouth.

"Who is that handsome devil in the cool Bears sweater guzzling beers like a hero? And why is he eating so much trail mix without chewing any of it? I better go find out," Jackie thought as she made her way towards a semi-buzzed Pete. But one of Jackie's friends felt similar consternation/adoration at the site of an Alpha Male like Pete, and she beat Jackie to him. "Oh well," Jackie thought, "I'm sure some other guy has trail mix here." And she faded into the dark corners of Haligan.

But not for long! Within minutes Jackie's friend found her and tugged her elbow. "You better go talk to that guy," she said. "I'm trying to talk to him but he just keeps asking questions about you."

Jackie shrugged her shoulders. "OK," she said, nonchalantly, trying to hide the joy bursting inside her. "I'll see what he wants." She approached Pete confidently, as she was then oblivious to the fact that she was actually approaching the beginning of the rest of her life. "Hi," she started. "Do you know who I am?" She gave him a dead-on Rosie the Riveter pose.

Pete was instantly smitten by the beautiful Brazilian babe before him. Her dark eyes lit up the room, her tenuous smile dulled his gambling losses, her accent enchanted him. "Rosie the Riveter," he slurred, absolutely nailing his guess in one take.

"Why do you have trail mix at a bar?" Jackie wanted to get right to the point.

"Do you see a menu? They don't have food. I'm hungry. You want some? It's delicious, and healthy."

"It's not healthy," Jackie said to Pete for the very first time, unaware she would repeat this very same line to him multiple times a week for the next four years and beyond. But she did want some, so she reached into his sack of trail mix and pulled out an almond.

"Take more," Pete insisted, ever the gentleman. And so she did. And so it goes. And within hours Jackie was walking home with Pete as he directed her to pick up sticks for a fire he planned to make in his apartment. And the rest, as they say, is history.