Tossing My Cap in the Air

Casey and I call it the Mary Tyler Moore feeling. Sarah calls it “Suddenly I See” from that KT Tunstall song. Or it can be The Sound of Music when Maria is running around singing about the hills being alive and is just so happy with her lot in life that it doesn’t even matter that she’s a crappy nun. Or the shopping montage in Pretty Woman. Or The Little Mermaid when Ariel has her first day on land with Prince Eric. It’s the feeling that you are so lucky to live where you do and so happy to be in this fantastic place, that you just want to throw your cap in the air and spin around, smiling like an idiot.


I get this feeling often, particularly in the summer. When I’m riding the brown line downtown and see that beautiful skyline. When I see those funny hipsters riding giant bikes down Damen. When I sit on my back deck and can smell the grills from neighbors on all sides. When I’m waiting for the train and see my favorite street performers—three guys with a guitar and a chicken shake, singing Sam Cooke covers. When I saw that guy carrying his parrot around. Even on the daily commute, in a crowded train, looking at the wonderful variety of random, diverse and bizarre people I come in contact with.

At moments like these the city feels like your quirky great uncle, full of life and weirdness and when I’m walking to work and look up at the buildings and see the commuters and the tourists and feel the energy of the city, I really do want to toss my cap in the air, throw my arms wide and spin in circles.

Today was not one of these days.

It’s a Thursday in July and so Michigan Ave is bursting with tourists stopping to take pictures of the Disney Store. I saw three separate groups of little girls who wore clothes identical to those of the American Girl Dolls they were holding. I nearly got hit by a bus because a group was clustered to watch a contortionist in a green leopard skin leotard stuff himself through a tennis racket outside Crate and Barrel. It took me twenty (20) minutes to get to the end of my block because befanny-packed travelers from Omaha were ogling the Coach store.

I was also waylaid by those evil solicitors for Greenpeace/Feed the Children/Aveda Salons. Oh, how I loathe them. They work in two’s and three’s like Velociraptors with clipboards. Their annoyingly cheery demeanor would not be out of place were they checking me out at Trader Joe’s or serving me mozzarella sticks at Friday’s. At least then I’d have something to show for it! Cheap produce or a tasty appetizer. But no. All I get is mad and I ignore them when they shout, “you look like someone who cares about the environment!” Damn hippies.

Along with the slow-poke tourists and volunteers who hunt in packs, there is another creature in this upscale shopping Mecca—the uber rich. In town from Glencoe or stopping by from their condos on the Gold Coast, these are the types who have personal trainers, nutritionists and are often featured in glossy magazines at the most recent Gala benefitting the arts association where they are a Board Member just like their mother before them. These are the pretty people. The slow moving people. The put together people. The people not trying to get as much done as they can on their lunch break. Because they don’t have a lunch break. Because they don’t work. Because they don’t have to.

Jerks.

The Magnificent Mile Thursday-Sunday is a warzone and fills me with a rage I don’t experience anywhere else in the city. The kind of rage usually reserved for Cubs traffic. Today’s casualty of battle—my ego.

I needed a new bathing suit and had put off buying one as long as possible, but an unfortunate Frisbee-related incident at the beach convinced me it was time to bite the spandex bullet. I went to Eddie Bauer. Eddie “Middle-Aged-Mothers-from-the-Suburbs-Shop-Here-for-Vacationwear” Bauer. Three sales associates called me Ma’am. I got ma’am’d three times. In a row.

One associate tried to push me towards their miracle suits that ‘helps with sagging’. Is it time to worry about that already? Surely not! Surely, I don’t have to start thinking about that until I’m 45!  Or have given birth!

I bought my regular, non-miracle suit, with a skirted bottom, and then fought my way across the street to Forever 21. I asked a sales associate if they still had any beach cover-ups this season.

She looked confused and sputtered, “are you shopping for yourself?” I half smiled as I replied in the affirmative.

“Oh. OK. Sorry,” she sputtered. “I thought maybe you were shopping for a little sister or something.”

Awesome.

I don’t normally have rage/age/body issues. And I don’t usually hate it here. And I know I’ll shake it off by the time I get home. All I can say is there better be some Sam Cooke while I wait for the train. Or perhaps a deep dish pizza.