One More Crazy

I actually forgot about this until just now, but I had another very odd conversation with another very odd man.

This one occurred before one of my classes. It's a long story, but I go to this undergraduate class sometimes not for credit. Right before it started one day, an older man, clearly a mature student, turned to me and asked me the time or some similarly simple question. When I answered, he was like, "Oh! You're American!" and I was like, "yeah, guilty." He then asked me if I was from Boston. I said, "No, Chicago," (as I'm telling people I casually meet in situations such as these I am from Chicago) and he says, "Oh! You ever go to Canada?"

Now, I have never been to Canada. (When I told this story to Katy over Skype, she shrieked, very loudly and very Katy-ly, "WHAT??? YOU'VE NEVER BEEN TO CANADA???" I know this is unusual, so I sort of laughed and said, "no, never been to Canada." Katy: AHHHH!!!! WE HAVE TO GO TO CANADA!!!! I then mentioned if we went to Canada together, we would have gone to every North American country together as we went to Mexico for spring break, and you can imagine the shrieking and screaming and Canada-insisting that happened then.) ANYWAY. This gentleman, upon my telling him I have never been to Canada, says, "Oh! But it's just right there!" Confused, I say, "No.... it's probably like a 10-12 hour drive." "From Chicago??" "Yes... well... yes." I couldn't think of anything to say, really. I mean, it's a drive to Canada from Chicago.

He then says, "No! It's like, an hour, tops. I know geography." "Um... no. Because you have to drive up through Michigan or Minnesota first." Although, at this point, I will say I was starting to doubt myself. As I don't ACTUALLY live in Chicago, I started to wonder if there was a way to get to Canada from Chicago that I was just overlooking. But then he made it all better by saying...

"But those lakes. Isn't there a bridge or something that you can use to get across?"

As Annemarie said when I told her this story, "Uh, what? Those lakes are bigger than some OCEANS." I mean, not really, but you get the point. No, there is not a bridge going across Lake Michigan to Canada.

After I cleared up that misconception, though, there was more. "So, Chicago, eh? You read any German newspapers?"

"I... don't...uh... speak German."

"Well, right, but do you read any?"

"Um... no."

The only thing I can think of for this is perhaps he knew, in the back of his head or something, that Chicago was a big Polish immigrant town. Maybe he sort of knew that, and then got Poland and Germany confused... I don't know. I mean, it's a stretch, but it's the only way I can think of to legitimize that one.

I then explained to him that the Windy City was not named for the winds (although, to be fair, I think I told my dad or someone that this summer and whoever I told had never had any idea), told him that I was sorry, but I didn't know when the Great Fire was (although I did know Mrs. O'Leary's cow started it, which was a bit of trivia he was impressed with), and that, yes, Barack Obama is from Chicago, and no, I do not know him. (And to be clear, all this imparting of knowledge was because he asked me all these questions, not because I was volunteering Chicago information.) He was also about to ask me something else but class started.

So, yeah. But I do want to be clear about something. I was telling this story to some people in my program, and one guy was like, "Man, you're going to go home and tell all these stories about these weirdos, and everyone is going to think Ireland is full of crazy people." Although I have met two extremely odd men, the vast, vast majority of people (and men) in Ireland have been incredibly nice and haven't asked me odd questions about America's third-largest city or assumed I was a gangster. (Although, now that I'm thinking of it, both these odd men were somehow tripped into asking me odd questions by the mention of Chicago. Hmm.) So yeah. The crazies are just the ones who stick out in your mind.