Chi-town, Bye town

I am using this forum to formally announce that me and Chicago are no longer friends. My whole life, I've claimed how it's such a fun city and done nothing but compliment it. But now my bucket list has the goal on it "never drive in Chicago again."

Why this change of heart? On my way to Madison, from now on referred to as Mad-town, my mom and I (read: my mom) drove through Chicago at about 1:30pm on a Friday afternoon. We went 2 miles in 2 hours. That is 1 mile per hour*. Chinese water torture has nothing on that. There was no accident, there was no construction, there was simply traffic. With a capital T-R-A-F-F-I-C.

*Note: the first time I posted this I did the math and wrote that it was 0.1 miles per hour. That's because thinking about my traffic nightmare makes me incapable of simple math. 

After the worst traffic jam in the century came to a slow and painful end we had a happy light at the end of the tunnel: CONSTANT TOLLS.

And I always thought New Jersey had the worst tolls in America. Flashbacks to the times my boyfriend and I were going through a toll in NJ that was like 20 cents EXACT CHANGE and the person in front of us was paying in pennies.

I have a theory that, in order to pass your driver's license test in Jersey, you must flick people off while you pass them on the highway. The curse word yelled out the window earns bonus points. If New Jersey had a state anthem, it would be the incessant blaring of angry horns.

No, you, Chicago, may even trump the dirty jerz for worst place to drive. Hopefully I will never drive either place again. Tolls in Chicago have 35 lanes for the 12 people who have "iZoom" (like easy pass) and then ONE lane for the 140 people with cash. The cash lane is in the far far far right lane. You literally have to loop off the road to pay the whopping 50 cents and then merge all the way back over to the left just to get back onto the road.  Who doesn't like merging as much as physically possible?

I captured this picture while we were driving (read: crawling) onto the "Chicago Skyway." I would have had time to paint a still-life portrait of this had I had some paint and artistic ability. My mom liked the font, as do I. Special shout out to my mom for driving through this mess. Mom, you're the best! Chicago, never again.