Deliveries: A Week In Review

Monday
It’s always funny being back. The first day on the job after a fun or grueling five week tour of Europe with The Bitter Tears. It’s Windex for the perspective that place. When you leave this town for a while, you forget how important everything in Chicago is.
Then you hear the whininess in the accent, see the city workers getting paid to gather dust, and realize that you are supposed to know everything. It’s grey, someone drives like an asshole, and you hit a pothole. And then you remember how important Chicago is.
I'm in a decent mood. I'm glad to be working. I still feel outside of the local, miserable importance. I still have some Europe inside of me. I know this is a fleeting feeling. I will relish it for as long I can.

Tuesday
Saw lots of butts in buildings. Because they are so enormous. You don't know what else to do with them. So you just look at them. I think if you spend too much time in one of those buildings you start to look like food. Around State and Monroe my two-wheeler and I weaved through some waddling ham sandwiches and pickles to get to the elevator. A man with wig-white hair noticed my two-wheeler.
"It looks like you've got one of those things that people ride around in."
Oh, a segway.

He laughed and told me how he's always wanted to do one of those segway tours and wondered how people stay on those things anyway.
I played along, because I still had some Europe in me.
"Yeah, they're unwieldy."

Wednesday
Got sent to the Sherwood Forest up in the north burbs. Decent property resting on Lancelot Avenue, Robin Hood Place, Little John Court. Landscapers cut grass and trimmed hedges all over these streets. I wonder if they ever get any ideas.

Delivering lots of garment bags for the Fashion Office this week. And little else. One of the clothing designers lives just down the street, which allowed for lunch at home with Lauren.

When there's no work I find a loading zone where I can read, write, work on music, or sleep. A woman who works for the Episcopal Church on Erie enjoys kicking me out of its loading zone. I'm trying to figure it out. She works for a church. Her faith is an accepting one, big on equal rights. But she won't accept a minivan parked in a loading zone.

Oh, there's that Chicago anger I feel creeping into my blood again.

Thursday

Due to miscommunication between clients I spent 47 minutes inside the Willis Tower trying to deliver two boxes to the Metropolitan Club. Most of this time was spent waiting for the freight elevator. On the 66th floor hallway surrounded by boxes and garbage I discovered a tuned, upright piano. For seven minutes I played it. It was by far the best time I've ever had near a freight elevator in my life.

Friday

Delivered over 700 lbs of sample-size Multi-Grain Cheerios to Navy Pier for the marathon on Sunday. It took two trips and five hours. The constant autumn rain will provide cold Cheerio soup for the runners.

At an Orland Park gas station I required an afternoon coffee. I added two hazelnut creamers and dusted it with nutmeg, naively associating this with Europe and its love of nutella. What I had done in actuality was made the worst coffee in North America. It tasted like diet gasoline. This was when I knew that I was actually back. Any trace of inner-Europe had vanished like The Olympics in Chicago.

I was now eligible to talk on any subject with flat, misinformed authority, become selfishly competitive behind the wheel, and begin resembling an Italian Beef. Dipped in inferiority complex.

Friday Night Date and Delivery

It's a lean month. After five weeks off with no income coming in, I must take any work I can. So on our Friday night date, Lauren and I went to see Salem! The Musical at The Annoyance. I highly recommend it because it made everyone laugh and cheer. We wanted to stick around afterward for beers but I had agreed to deliver a package to the north suburbs in the evening. It paid well.

Lauren has a big heart so she joined me for the trek through Ferris Bueller country, where the houses are gaudy, the streets are dark, and the addresses are impossible to see. Struggling to find numbers on one of the many streets named Woodland, a man out of Friday the 13th with a dog and a flashlight could not help us. When we circled back he was gone. Lauren found the house and I left the package neatly on the important man's porch.

Dating while working. Taking multi-tasking one step further. Maybe I'm just ahead of my time.