Chicago, Why Did You Smell Like Barf Today?

So I park my car, see, behind the post office on 19th and Ashland. And I get out of the car, see, and I am suddenly gagging because there is a smell on the wind like barf, like if you were standing over a paper shopping bag full of barf. But there's no shopping bag.

I remember once in high school some kid had snuck into the ventilator system and barfed in there, and we were in gym class, and the whole gym smelled like that. And until today that's the largest space I could even imagine being filled with that smell.

But here's a whole area - all right, I'm just guessing, but it must've been from the United Center to China Town - whole area of the city smelling like a gym after some kid barfed in the ventilator shaft.

Chicago is no stranger to lousy stinks. There's the tannery up around Webster Place where it smells kind of like rotting fish. And every once in a while there's a sickly-sweet taint on the wind, makes you picture a cardboard box full of maple syrup on fire. Maybe a little Seven Seas Italian dressing thrown on there. And a little smidgen of rat fur.

But come on, Chicago. I don't know what to say. Just don't smell like barf. It's just too embarrassing. When I get out of my car, and something smells worse outside than what's in there, the outside should be ashamed. I went into the post office to do my postal errands, which took a while, forgot all about the smell, came out and oy vey.

I'm going to LA where it smells like herbs because the weeds are all rosemary bushes and the hedges are jasmine. And I'm gonna rub that smell all over my face.

Sorry, Chicago. It was just one too many stinks, even for me.