A Trip to Chicago

"Can I get you anything? Booze? Smokes? Porn?" the stranger said to me. Perhaps my mother had put too much faith in my 20-something year old cousin and her roommates. "Really though, you're in Chicago, hours away from your parents, you can do whatever you want." It was true; at 13 I had taken the train all the way from Michigan to Chicago, navigated Union Station to find my cousin Clare, and rode with her to the home she shared with her roommates Josh and Robin. I had figured Josh was joking, but the more I got to know him I'm sure he would've given me whatever I had asked for that first night, eager to corrupt a young mind.

The next day was Warped Tour, but before heading to Tinley Park we stopped for breakfast at Panera Bread. Although in years to come Panera would become a staple of my diet, this was my first encounter with the bakery. After ordering the pecan-covered cinnamon roll, I silently applauded myself for such a wise decision. I could handle this, I could order good food for myself in a café so foreign to me. The roll was sticky, the pecans crunchy, and the bread sweet. Only when Josh offered me a bite of his egg soufflé did I recognize my mistake: my cinnamon roll was like breakfast-dessert, whereas Josh's soufflé was a main course. With cheese and spinach and mushrooms, the egg was fluffy yet substantial and filling, but my fluffiness was just empty pockets of air leaving me empty and yearning for another bite. These days I order both, because my parents are hours away and I can do whatever I want.

Warped Tour itself was sweaty: parking lots full of hooligans running around in the summer heat. I will never forget the stench. Here began the list of, "Things We Won't Tell Your Mother:" losing each other in mosh pits, avoiding attacks with condom balloons, screaming swear words. Clare's brother Jake joined us for our adventure but didn't participate in the shenanigans, assuring us that he was rocking out on the inside. Clare and I were doing the opposite. There I first learned proper punk-concert etiquette: helping each other lift people on top of the crowd, yanking someone up when they fall, and the strangely kind ritual of drinking a sip of water from a bottle and passing it to your neighbor (until some jerk throws the water bottle over the crowd, showering everyone below the line of trajectory and eventually hitting some poor fellow in the head). The water, though surely full of backwash and saliva, was a refreshing reminder of concert-goers' altruism.

After recovering from Warped Tour, a few nights later we went to a different kind of show: theater. However, I was unaware of the extent to which this show would be so unlike conventional theater: the Neo-Futurists, "Theater that doesn't suck," they say, putting on their signature, "Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind" production. Here, I called a representative in Nevada to voice my opinion, I got popcorn thrown at me, and I saw a grown man naked. "Everything about that show," my cousin Clare said to me, "Goes on the list of things we won't tell your mother."

Later in the week we ate at a local pizza place and ordered two gigantic Chicago-style pizzas. "This should be number one on your 'Things to Tell Your Mother' list, she'll be very proud we ate Chicago-style pizza." Proud though she was, no one was more pleased than me. Standing three inches tall, contained by buttery crust, our pizza had at least two layers of both cheese and sauce, with pepperoni swimming somewhere in the middle. It was the best pizza I've ever had. The sauce had just the right hint of sweet and the whole wheat crust—giving the illusion of health—was delicious without being distracting. Afterward, stuffed, I pleaded for a nap but to no avail, instead we went shopping, leaving no opportunity to keep leftovers.

The next week was less fun. Clare and her roommates had to resume normal adult life and return to work, so I spent my days in Jake's back yard, pulling weeds and undoing the damage of his twin Akitas. One day Jake's hired help came to clean the home, bringing along her adorable approximately-6-year-old daughter, Angelica. I remember her name because of the Rugrats character, although she looked more like Dora the Explorer. For most of the morning, Angelica and her mother avoided me, a stranger to them. Yet, around lunch time, Angelica brought to me a fruit I had never seen before. I thanked her enthusiastically but still she stood staring up at me, so I took a giant, juicy bite. Gross. I had never tasted anything so disgusting in my life. The skin was like fuzzy, poisionous rubber, but I choked it down, following quickly with my Monster Chaos energy drink. After what felt like an eternity, I swallowed and looked back down at the little girl by my feet: her expression hadn't changed. Another bite, more suffering, more Monster, same expression. Eventually, by some miracle Angelica retreated back into the house and left me to my work.

Later, I discovered that the fruit handed to me was a mango, and that normal people don't eat the skin. For a long time afterward, I refused to get anywhere near a mango until I realized how delicious they are sans-skin. For a couple more summers I continued to make my yearly trips to Chicago. Eventually, though, I got a job at a coffee shop and with it came responsibilities to stay in town during the summer. Luckily, this job also came with the benefit of one free drink per shift, often a delicious mango smoothie.