I've been away and stressed so you haven't heard from me in awhile. My mother-in-law isn't doing well and I am not getting along with everybody in the world.
But I do have updates for you.
Earlier I told you about the crazy lady who greeted me at my daughter's school. On Friday, I went back to my normal routine hoping against hope that she wouldn't be there when I dropped my daughter off. Unfortunately, she was walking out while we were walking in, AND SHE WAITED FOR ME!!!
That's right, she waited for me to walk my daughter to her classroom, greet her teacher, get her book bag put away, move her picture to the place that means she's there (because seeing her isn't enough) and there she was waiting for me by the door.
Apparently, she's a member of the parent's guild which is the Catholic school equivalent of the parent teacher association. She was very eager to get to know me, and asked the question (that I am often asked here) which I dread. "Where in Chicago are you from?"
Now to many people this may be a simple geography question. If I were asked this in Chicago, I would simply answer it by saying "I grew up about a mile south of Midway, but before we moved here we lived in the Bridgeport neighborhood, just off of Archer." In this area, however, this is greeted with blank stares until I say "Chicago-Chicago, near downtown." I say this because they were thinking I would say something like Joliet or Naperville or something, because in this world anything north of Kankakee and south of Wisconsin is considered "Chicago," this black-hole of speeding crazies who drive to fast and right on your butt so if you sneeze and accidentally step on your break, they'd run into you (someone actually stated this a problem with "Chicago").
Having grown up there, I have the sneering contempt of suburbs that many city dwellers have, and the fact that one could consider a suburb 20 miles out of the city the actual city is ridiculous. I guess if I am ever going to fit in here, I'll have to let little crap like this go, but I can't help it. If I was from Joliet, I'd say "Joliet" and if there was confusion I'd say "It's a suburb of Chicago."
15 hours ago
1 comment:
My friend Jesse and I were watching these bozo bros from Winnetka or whatever wander around lost with super spiky hair and matching shirts and $500 holey jeans. You could tell they were lost and confused in the hood and they started making frantic use of their cell phones, Jesse said,
"You know they're calling their friends back in Wilmette, telling them I don't know where we are exactly. We're somewhere DOWNTOWN. Yeah, we're downtown and we can't get a cab. Downtown!"
Of course, humblo squark is halfway between "downtown" and Oak Park, but whatever. Your rant reminded me of that whole little amusing drama.
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