Chicago and the Bumper Sticker War

My trip to Chicago was great. I ate a lot, drank a lot, smoked a lot and shopped a lot. My perfect weekend. The whole weekend was mostly without incident. Friday night I met up with my friend for drinks at about 10:00pm. I thought we had registered at the same hotel. We did not. There are five Marriots in the town of Oak Brook, IL. Her hotel was five minutes from mine. I left about 1:30am to go back to my hotel. No problem, five minutes away. WELL, all of you who know me know that I can get lost in my own neighborhood, so expecting that I could get back to my hotel in the middle of the night could be unrealistic. And it was. My friend asked me to call when I got back.

I got in the car, feeling confident. It quickly disappeared as I passed my first Chop Suey place, then the pawn shop, then the next Chop Suey place. I might be lost. After 25 minutes my friend Cheryl called. I told her I was lost. She started laughing. She went down to the front desk, where she asked the non -English speaking personnel to help me.

I was not drunk, however I had enough to go to jail if I got pulled over. This gentleman had me flipping U-Turns. I, at one point, drove past the same Roller Rink three times, before he understood where I was. It then turned into a "Who's on First" skit. He would tell me, "Get in the left lane." I would repeat back to him,"The left lane?" He would say, "Right." I would say,"The right lane?" Finally I got him to say "Correct". After about a half an hour, I was back at my hotel. So, my five minute trip took an hour. I got into the room to find my traveling companion fast asleep, oblivious to the fact that I had been missing in a strange city in the middle of the night.

The rest of the trip was rather uneventful. We got hit on by truckers at the truckers' convention at our hotel, I couldn't poop for four days and Rachel had a panic attack on the subway. Nothing too blog worthy.

Once I got home and got back into life I received a bumper sticker in the mail. This is the second bumper sticker I ordered from MoveOn.org. The first one was thrown away by J. He decided that we are NOT bumper sticker people. Well, I decided that I am. So, I got it in the mail yesterday, while J. was at work and put it on my car. I like it.

Well, this morning about three minutes after J. left for work I get a phone call.
"Hey, I think one of the college kids hit your car." J says.
"WHAT!!!" I panic.
"No, I mean it looks like one of the kids put a bumper sticker on your car. I looked at all the other cars around and it doesn't look like they did it to anyone else's car." (I am sure you have heard of the GREAT BUMPER STICKER VANDALISM RING)
"I put it on."
Silence.
"Will it come off?" his voice changes.
"I guess, if I take it off." I say.
"SHANNON, we are NOT bumper sticker people."
"We'll see." I hang up.

I don't really care about bumper stickers. BUT, now I do. I think I AM a bumper sticker person and I might be a political sign in the front yard person if he doesn't watch it.