Not As Bad As That Guy...

I'm not one for using other people as your yardstick, as my mother used to say (and, I suppose, still does), but I think I can make an exception in this case.

Yesterday my boss came in to work, and the first thing she told us was that on Sunday they found a body in the Kishwaukee River near Hopkins Park, the park everyone goes to to jog and ride bikes and swim at the public pool. It was a beautiful day here on Sunday, and everyone was out. Apparently a family walking two dogs and several children found a bloated corpse pressed into the weeds on the riverbank that had been exposed "for several weeks," as the radio kept reminding me all day.

At work we were speculating on who it could be. There have been two prominent missing people (prominently missing, not so much prominent people gone missing) around here in the last few years, a guy last seen at Otto's (palm tree tattoo on ankle and sun on back, last seen at the bar on the fabled gay night--read: homo) whom there is a $50,000 reward for finding, and a guy from Wisconsin who checked in to the Best Western after an automobile accident on the interstate and never checked out (last seen on Christmas Day leaving without his belongings).

The autopsy revealed that the cause of his death was drowning. And they identified him as the guy from Wisconsin. Case closed.

There is a legend here about how if you touch the Kish you never leave DeKalb. Case and point.

So, that's the news from my small corner of the world. And from that news, I can tell you that my situation? Not as bad as that guy's.

Out