Second Story Nosedive

I Wonder If They'll Forget They Don't Have a Porch and Walk Out The Back Door


Anyone from the Chicagoland area with any knowledge of recent Chicago history is well aware that the porches in this city are not necessarily "built to last." Porch collapses have been a reoccurring theme for Chicago news. I've seen it in the news multiple times, but what comes to mind was the incident in June of 2003. 13 "young professionals" (as they were sympathetically labeled in a CBS news article from the next year) died in a porch collapse in Lincoln Park.

"Kyle, why the hell are you bringing up such a gruesome topic in the midst of all of our early summer fun?" you're probably asking yourself. Well, for one, I'm not on summer break yet so I don't care about your long bike rides, ice-cream saturated beach fun, or your all-night-booze-and-questionable-decions extravaganzas (talk to me in two weeks, though, and I'll probably be riding my bike, dripping with Stephen Colbert's Americone Dream, and paying a visit to my local Old Style distributor simaltaneously to accelerate my "questionable decisions" for the night). Really, though, I'm bringing this up because my neighbors next door are in the process of having a new porch built for them and this scares me for a few reasons.

First of all, my next door neighbors apartment building is owned by the same landlord (slumlord) as our two-flat. Our porches were nearly identical (same shit-brown paintjob and all) and looked as though they were built around the same time (1940s? Not really, but still). We live on the second floor of our apartment building and our porch is not exactly as "young and beautiful" as it used to be (Jesus, I'd love to see the way that shit-brown paintjob glistened in the sun in it's earlier years). A quick tour of the scars and battle wounds of our porch: A wooden "guard rail" that feels as though it's going to leap off the rest of the porch when you lean on it, the beautiful shit-brown paintjob has been worn away in many places on the floorboards (revealing the sad and stressed wood underneath), and let's just say that there are a few places where I can see directly through the floor (kinda like Porky's ... only you're just looking through a hole ... in the floorboards ... 20 feet from the ground).

Now I understand that this probably means that we're getting a new porch in the near future (it only seems like common sense, but then again not everyone is as rational as you or I), but I am still worried. In the near future (if summer break is not just a desert mirrage in my overly optimistic head) we will hopefully be having a decent amount of company at our place over the summer. I'm not saying, "I've got so many friends that we're gonna tear this shit to the ground," but I am saying that as the weather gets nicer, and assuming all of us are still smoking cigarettes (which is a valid assumption) and consuming beverages outside (not an assumption, more of a fact), then the chances of an "accident" occurring may be significantly greater. Not to mention that the wood was frozen solid for some-odd months, the pressure is changing, the temperature is rising, and I'm assuming this process of "ball-shattering winter to pig-sweat summer" stresses the (mostly exposed) wood that is my porch. Also, I can almost see all the way through were the porch meets the brick of the building, so maybe the porch won't collapse as much as just fall over to the side like one of those fainting goats that I've seen on youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=we9_CdNPuJg).

Nonetheless, I don't want to be on that ship when it sinks.

Svengoolie and the Island of Doctor Moreau

Somewhere around Lincoln Park Zoo. Photo by Kyle Geib

So, in the midst of all this end-of-the-year chickenshit bullshit that is college, I've been playing with this possible scenario that will not only relieve me of stress (in ways the hand can only dream of), but it will also end the career of Svengoolie. Not that I have anything personally against Sven (aside from the fact that I only caught the last 20 minutes of The Island of Doctor Moreau the other night), but I just feel like this upcoming scenario places him on the "prime suspect" list:

In order for this to work I need a few supplies:

about 20-25' of three-strand twisted rope
1 dress (preferably white to emphasize my naive and immaculate nature)
1 wig (brunette, because, obviously, this needs to be as realistic as possible)

I also need a working set of train tracks, which is no problem because the Metra to Kenosha is conveniently located directly next to my apartment

Ok, so it's as simple as this: Dress up real pretty (dress, wig, get my nails did, etc), tie myself up (or be assisted, although this now makes someone an accomplice), and simply lay on the tracks and wait until that train to the badger state whizzes past School and Ravenswood. I'm assuming it should look something like this:



Snidely Whiplash will, I'm assuming, duck any possible police suspicion because of the mere fact that a cartoon character could never defeat a real life human being like myself. In case you need some more reliable proof than my own, here is a conversation between two 12-year-old boys:

Vern: Do you think Mighty Mouse could beat up Superman?
Teddy: What are you, cracked?
Vern: Why not? I saw the other day. He was carrying five elephants in one hand!
Teddy: Boy, you don't know nothing! Mighty Mouse is a cartoon. Superman's a real guy. There's no way a cartoon could beat up a real guy.

Obviously Teddy Duchamp never tells a lie.

Anyway, since Snidely Whiplash will not be a suspect in my "murder" (also eliminating the possibility that that no-good canuck Dudley Do-Right will show up and foil my plan) the possible suspects will be greatly narrowed. It will be clear to the authorities that whoever committed this crime must gallivant around town in a top hat and a goofy, curly mustache based on the nature of this crime. This leaves only Svengoolie and Skinny Puppy fans, and everybody knows Skinny Puppy fans are a bunch of pussies. From there the authorities will need no further proof.

So why, exactly did I just write a ridiculously long entry about framing Svengoolie for murder? I dunno, I guess I just really wanted to see The Island of Doctor Moreau in it's entirety.

Aside from that, everything's been just dandy.