If I don't write about the Long Grove Strawberry Festival, the terrorists have won.

I've officially had the worst morning ever. My mom called at seven to tell me my grandmother died overnight. I'm okay, I'm keeping it together at work right now. (Future employers / Communist governments: I am the best worker ever. My first reaction was, "I have to go to work because we're so short-staffed right now and I feel too guilty!") I'll probably fly home tomorrow or Friday morning and be back next week sometime. Since, I was planning to not stay all day at work, I decided I'd try to get here early so I can at least get most of my hours in. And of course it started pouring and hailing as soon as I walked out the door, and not even the Evita soundtrack (well, not the soundtrack; the original concept album) could keep me from hating everything. For a split second I considered standing in an ATM vestibule until it cleared up. When it started to slow down, I decided that I'd be okay, even if my ankles were soaking from flooded sidewalks. And then I was a little too ambitious when trying to jump over a three-foot puddle and ended up landing in the puddle and now I'm sitting in my cubicle with bare feet and my socks sitting on the computer tower (which is on the floor, thankfully). Also, I decided to buy cigarettes because it was just one of those mornings where I was not going to feel guilty about smoking OR spending eight dollars on them. And then the cover of the Red Eye had a picture of a smoker with the headline, "Public Enemy Number One". Personally, I think "newspapers" geared toward people who only read bullshit news stories on public transportation might be slightly more dangerous, but I'm not the goddamn Surgeon General. Oh well.

And since I don't feel like writing anymore about that, I figured I would talk about the Strawberry Festival we went to on Saturday. And hopefully I can make it through this entry without screwing up my homonyms (even though I'll admit that when writing this post's title, I at first typed "the terrorists have one").

So.

OH MY GOD, Y'ALL. I saw the fattest people on Saturday. Seriously. FAT MIDWESTERNERS. I think it is ironic that I did not see a single actual strawberry (there were some pies, and some rhubarb, and the occasional milk shake), but I did see deep-fried Twinkies and Oreos. Now, if you're like me and from a normal part of the country (i.e. The South), upon hearing the phrase "deep-fried Twinkies and Oreos", you would think, "What the fuck." Well, for you, I'll explain the concept. You take your Oreos and Twinkies, dip them in pancake mix (I guess - I just know they were also making funnel cakes and I think those are made from the same dough), throw them in a vat of grease, let them sit for a few minutes, then cover them with chocolate syrup and powdered sugar. And there you have your new treat / case of angina. (Am I the only one who, at almost twenty-three, giggles when he uses the word "angina"?)

So yeah, I saw a lot of grease. And morbidly obese men. And a lot of women with exposed caesarian scars. I felt like I was in a John Cougar Mellencamp song.

So there you go: life in the Chicago suburbs. And I apologize for it taking so long to get to that, and for it being pretty half-assed, but, you know. I'll probably take a break from this for a few days, unless something absolutely hysterical happens. And that would be a good thing, because, like Truvy Jones, "laughter through tears is my favorite emotion."