People who aren't from New York assume that you see a lot of gory and disgusting things when you live in that city, but I will argue that the kind of madness that you witness there is just as rampant outside Manhattan.  I've been back in Illinois for only a month, and I've seen three terribly disconcerting occurences:

1)A bicycle run into a stationary car.

2)A taxi get into an accident.

3)A man in the car next to mine pleasure himself while my friends and I sat in the next lane in shock.

The bicycle incident actually wasn't that big of a deal.  While there are probably some very responsible and skilled cyclists out there, I only seem to encounter the half-wits that don't wear helmets and ride on the sidewalk.  When I was assured that the cyclist I saw crash was okay, I actually indulged in a quiet guffaw.

The taxi event was most unsettling.  There's this unspoken agreement between passengers and cab drivers-no matter how erratic the cabbie drives, we needn't fear crashing.  Everything is supposed to work out in the end.  Well this time it didn't.  My faith is shaken.

The...er...pleasuring situation was probably the most icky of the three sights.  Allegedly this sort of thing happens all the time in New York so it's become no big deal.  You see the...pleasurer, snap his picture with your camera-phone, then walk away to post it on the internet for him to be publicly humiliated.   In Illinois, not so easy.  First you uneasily try to slow down to lose him.  Then you try to speed up to lose him.  Then you try to cut him off so you're not subjected to glancing over at his weenie whacking ways...I'm completely grossed out that I just used that alliterative phrase.  Ew.  But yes, nobody wins when that sort of situation occurs in suburbia. 

Despite witnessing those three atrocities, I've held off from gauging my eyes out so that I might travel back to New York to attend the Del Close Marathon.  A non-stop improv marathon featuring people who are unhealthily hilarious.  Money is an issue, but I'm prepared to hitchhike to get out there.  Actually I'm not prepared to do that.  Too unsafe. 

 

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