So in case you've been living under a rock for the last month and half, or, more reasonably, I don't even make the top 1000 in your list of people to pay attention to, I live in Chicago now. Chicago (or "The Big Apple", as the locals call it) is much different from Detroit in many ways. For example, buildings here aren't constantly on fire. That's an important one. Also, people here aren't constantly being rudely murdered. That's what I always hated about Detroit, the fact that I kept getting rudely murdered. Since I've been in Chicago I haven't even been murdered once! A picture of a guy not getting murdered should be on their flag.
HOWEVER, I am currently living in Chicago while being unemployed. In theory, this is really awesome. In an even more recently researched theory that debunks the previous theory, it's not even close to awesome. Day-to-day life isn't very relaxing when you get buyer's remorse from purchasing a box of Hamburger Helper, so I've been going to the library everyday in order to research companies and apply for job postings. I have to go to library because if I stay in my apartment I'll end up getting distracted by the whiteness of the walls, errant oxygen molecules, and the deafening sound of dust particles slowly piling up on flat surfaces.
HOWEVER, I am currently at the library NOT looking for jobs and writing down all this shit, so you can see how motivated I am. Obviously I'm not too excited to be some sort of Moon Engineer or whatever it is I went to 18 years of college for. But, come on! This is Chicago! In a city as big as this there has to be tons of other hidden opportunities out there just waiting for me to purposefully ignore. Why limit myself to career choices related to my education? Here are some other options I've been considering:
Hot Dog Vendor
Leave it to Chicago to embrace nature's most perfect food, the hot dog. Of course, Chicagoans take their hot dogs very seriously. Don't expect to buy a hot dog from any Chicago street vendor unless it has all of the following ingredients: tomato wedges, onions, a pickle, neon green relish, mustard, celery salt, sesame seeds, marshmallows, lemons, french fries, and marbles. The all-beef hot dog must be blessed by the leaders of three different religions and buried for 12 hours in a graveyard on Halloween night. This ain't some shitty New York-style hot dog, where the ingredients are riddled with syphilis and all of the hot dogs that are used were originally packaged by 7-year-olds in a Bangladeshi sweatshop. Fuck New York! Booooooo!
Anyway, what was I talking about again? Selling hot dogs on the street? That idea sucks! What's next?
Professional CTA Passenger
CTA stands for "Chicago Transit Authority", which is a mass transit system involving buses and trains that can take you where you need to be conveniently. Let's say you need to be somewhere that is about ten miles away. All you need to do is transfer to seven different buses and ride for three hours while you make 244 different stops that are all 14 feet apart from each other. The system is very similar to the CATA system in East Lansing, except the drivers in Chicago don't hit the gas while you cross the street and try to run you over on purpose.
There's also the elevated train system, the 'L', which is even more convenient in that you can make unlimited free transfers over to other 'L' lines as long as you never leave the stations. This means that for an initial fare of $2.25 you can kill an entire day by just riding around the whole city and looking out the window with a senseless slack-jawed expression on your face. I have not taken advantage of this glorious activity as of yet, but rest assured that a day will come where I'll have to pretend that I have a job so that Erika won't come home at the end of the day and throw various appliances at my head. That's when I can put on my fancy workin' clothes, snap up my briefcase, and transfer between the Orange Line and the Brown Line over and over again for eight straight hours. No one will be the wiser.
Great idea, huh?
Join an Improv Comedy Troupe
Chicago is one of, like, three cities in the entire fucking world where comedians come from. Seriously, look it up. Funny people don't make it big in Flushing, Michigan, that's for damn sure. While a city like New York (child labor hot dogs! Boooooo!) is known for stand-up, Chicago is more known for improvisational comedy. Except I've seen enough episodes of "Whose Line is it Anyway?" to know that I'd be absolutely terrible at it. Oh god, could you even imagine how shitty I'd be on stage?
Guy #1: So, I hear FLORIDA is a lovely place for a Sunday drive! Ha ha!
Tom: ...
Guy #2: ...right, I hope I don't get stuck behind some OLD PEOPLE! Ha ha!
Tom: ...
Guy #1: (angrily) ...'cause old people are awful drivers, and Florida's full of 'em, right Tom?
Tom: (cries)
All right, forget I ever had this idea.
Professional Blogger
Yeah right. I'm practically illiterate. All my blogs are written by having rats run around my keyboard for about an hour. I, of course, change a few of the adjectives afterwards. That's how I wrote all my papers and lab reports too.
In all seriousness, I have to figure out something to do, because when I'm bored and left to my own devices I spend that time making stupid animated GIFs like this:
And no one wants that.
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