I know I'm from Chicago because...

(These are new ones from the Chicago Architecture Foundation Web site.)

  1. You precede every past-tense verb with “had” and think every other verb should be a gerund. “He had been a stock broker and was wanting to live in Streeterville” instead of “He was a stock broker and wanted to live in Streeterville.”
  2. Your girlfriend describes every good thing as “amazing.” There are no other adjectives.
  3. You don’t bother looking up until there are at least three TV news helicopters circling overhead.
  4. If you see two or more military helicopters in the sky, you know traffic is about to be screwed up around The Loop, Hyde Park, or both.
  5. You listen to the news on AM radio even though the exact same program is available on an FM frequency.
  6. You’ve ever been late for work because of a drawbridge.
  7. You vocally refuse to go to chain restaurants, but freely tuck in to Al’s #1 Beef, Giordano’s pizza and Portillo’s hot dogs.
  8. You keep a few bucks in your pocket because even though credit cards have been around for nearly 100 years, none of the eateries on your block take plastic.
  9. It took you a while to realize that “Vote early, vote often” is a joke phrase, and not advice from the Cook County Clerk.
  10. When you see someone on the street arguing with himself, it’s usually crazy, not Bluetooth.
  11. You see a tragic gun massacre elsewhere in the country on the news and think to yourself, “That’s just a warm summer weekend in Chicago.”
  12. You went to the Billy Goat Tavern before Saturday Night Live.
  13. You still think Garfield Goose is the height of sophisticated humor.
  14. You breathed a sigh of relief when Rio got the Olympics.
  15. You’ve convinced yourself that limiting your thick-crust pizza to two toppings makes it a health food.
  16. You mentally heckle the geographical errors that inevitably show up in any movie or TV program set in Chicago.