Because She, Charlie, Is A Nitwit.

I don't get Chicago. It always has the reputation of being the cool, understated city, the city that's like that guy at the party who sits in the corner quietly sipping his drink while the guy over at the bar talks loudly about how crazy he and his friends are (this would be New York), Chicago of course knows the guy is a dirty liar, but he's too cool to care. He just keeps sipping his drink. Which happens to be an appletini. That's how cool he is. This is the city of Wilco, of 'High Fidelity', of 'This American Life'. A city which I have yet to find. Maybe it's because I inevitably spend most of my time in the South Loop, or maybe it's because the best parts of this city are being destroyed before I find out about them.

According to a story on last week's TAL, there is a chocolate factory in the West Loop, and if you were to stand on the right bridge (like perhaps the one I can see from my room?) the whole city would begin to smell like chocolate. That is until someone complained to the EPA. And the EPA, responsible government agency they are, told the factory to limit the amount of cocoa dust they released into the air (As for all of the coal plants in the Chicagoland area releasing more than the legal amount of particles into the air? They'll totally get to that later). So now it's gone. Now we're just left with that damp smell that comes from the street grates and the always pleasing aroma of exhaust. Maybe that person lived too close to the factory to realize how wonderful that smell is. Perhaps its how I don't understand how trees seem to be endlessly fascinating to people. But year after year, they are. And I live with it. I don't call the government and complain about the trees, not only because I'm a nice guy, but also because the government has stopped taking my calls, so it'd be kind of pointless to try anyway. And I'd call the guy a joyless bastard, but honestly, what's the point? I'm sure he knows it, and is probably proud of it, as the way most joyless bastards are. Stories like these always stick in the back of my mind, when I watch a movie with a character who is just such an unbelievable dick that I think it's poorly written, that no one could be that terrible, but then I think back to the chocolate guy, and go, "Oh wait, actually, they can."