Random Acts of Ridiculousness

One of the best things about living in Chicago is the randomness. I love that you never know what you’re going to see, and, honestly, you start to not be surprised by things. Last week, I was headed home from work and saw two guys carrying a banged up black leather Lazy-Boy up Michigan Ave. They were on the verge of dropping it—they were quite skinny and red-faced, and the crowds of people weren’t making their lives easier. It was just bizarre, because, really, who carries an old Lazy-Boy up Michigan Ave. at rush hour? But then, two days later, when I saw two completely different men carrying a pair of mattresses up Michigan Ave., I just wasn’t that surprised.

Tonight, on the way home from the MoCA, Vinny and I passed a woman with a stroller. I was looking into it so I saw the pug before it barked. But Vinny was distracted by all the stuff he was carrying, so it was completely hilarious to see his reaction when what he thought was a baby in a stroller started barking at us. Seriously, who takes their dog for a walk by pushing it in a stroller? (People in this town are crazy about their dogs, by the way.) There are lots of random acts of ridiculousness happening all around the city all the time. Usually they’re just funny, although occasionally something will be just plain offensive (seriously, people, wearing pants is called decency).

But then there are patterns, too, and they’re just as fun to recognize. I wrote a blog awhile back about the dripping rain falling from a leaky bus roof, and my amusement that every single person who was dripped on reacted in exactly the same manner. Tonight, something like that happened again. Vinny and I went to listen to free jazz at the MoCA (a little disappointing—the music is great, but if you’re sitting on the grass, you can’t see anything—hence, “free”). On our way out, we were distracted by all kinds of colorful exhibits and started putzing around. Right now, there’s this fabulous tunnel with intricate walls like prisms, reflecting a rainbow of colors from one end to the other. And you get to walk through it. But if you go back through from the other direction, there’s no color—it’s just black. I noticed this, said, “Oh, there’s no color from this side!” and kept walking, but Vinny went to investigate. Soon, he declared his amazement that it was colorless on one side and colorful on the other, and the security guard started laughing. Vinny started laughing, too, and said to me, “He must see people do that same thing all day long.” And undoubtedly, he must. So, maybe every person doesn’t react exactly the same way (after all, I didn't even pause to investigate before heading toward the next shiny object), but both of us, and other onlookers, expressed our amazement that the color was gone when you walked back through. We all create these expectations and habits, and when something interrupts them (like raindrops indoors, or tricky artwork) we're always surprised. And, unless you’re just a stick-in-the-mud, it is funny to watch people from all walks of life respond in exactly the same way to a particular stimulus. If I’d been the security guard, I’d have cracked up, too. It kind of made my day.