In today’s melting pot you might not be able to tell right off where the people around you have come from. I can tell you that there are transplants from Chicago all over. (We have infiltrated every aspect of your culture.) Here’s the five easiest ways to tell if the person you’re dealing with just so happens to hail from the windy city.
- A transplant from Chicago will know every line to the Blues Brothers and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. During most scenes in these films they’ll be identifying cross streets to further the experience of more casual viewers. These movies appear on cable almost constantly. Be warned that people from Chicago just cannot pass these films up. The need to view these films over and over was programmed into us during childhood when they were WGN’s matinees; shown after the ballgames. See also: Running Scared.
- We cuss... a lot. Sorry, we don’t realize we’re doing it. That’s how people talk where we come from. Even the children talk like this. Its just how it’s always been. Now we’re all over the world and we’re saying things absent-mindedly. It’s only rarely that we notice the sudden, horrified look on someone’s face and realize we just trucker-mouthed your grandma like an asshole.
- They have no respect for your pizza. You think you know pizza? You don’t know pizza. And we have no patience for your trifling games. Any place you name for having good pizza anywhere outside of Chicago will be scoffed at and openly ridiculed (especially if that place you name is New York). Please try not to be offended. We know not what we do…just like you don’t know anything about pizza.
- Yeah, we all know the Super Bowl Shuffle and every year there’s going to be a little while where we’re really into it. Get used to it, give us our space, and it wouldn’t hurt if you threw on a headband and a jersey either.
- The Bozo Show…you don’t need to know what that means. Just say those words in a crowd and you will know at once who the Chicago folk in the room are. (As if you couldn’t tell already) If there’s drinks, just be prepared to be challenged to the “grand prize game.”
