Flow State

There are certain things about Chicago that apparently only exist in the minds of people who grew up in the suburbs, went away to college, and then moved into the city at 22.

These are people who have lived in Chicago for three years and somehow know more about being a Chicagoan than people who have lived here their entire lives.

They have rules.

And not just rules. Chicago rules.

The kind of rules that, if you don’t follow them, apparently the city will revoke your Chicago card.

Here are a few.

Cubs vs. White Sox

According to the people who have recently moved to the city, Chicago is divided into two warring tribes: Cubs fans on the North Side and White Sox fans on the South Side.

You must pick one.

You cannot possibly root for both.

This is nonsense.

Plenty of Chicagoans root for both teams.

Because here’s the thing: we root for Chicago.

Sure, if the Cubs and White Sox are playing each other, you might have a preference. And yes, we might make fun of North Siders or South Siders depending on where we live and who we’re talking to.

That’s part of the fun.

But when it comes down to it, they’re both Chicago teams.

When one of them is playing somebody from St. Louis, Milwaukee, Detroit, New York or wherever, I’m not suddenly going to pretend they’re the enemy because I have a preferred baseball team.

That’s not how this works.

The idea that Chicagoans are required to hate one of our own teams is something I suspect was invented by somebody who discovered Wrigleyville after graduation and thought neighborhood boundaries were a personality.

Ketchup on a hot dog

This one drives me crazy.

Yes, you can put ketchup on a hot dog in Chicago.

You just don’t put ketchup on a Chicago dog.

Those are two different things.

A Chicago dog is a specific hot dog. It comes with mustard, relish, onion, tomato, sport peppers, celery salt, a pickle and whatever other argument people want to have about the proper arrangement of vegetables.

There is already tomato on it.

Putting ketchup on it would be redundant.

It’s like putting pineapple on a Hawaiian pizza and then announcing that pineapple is forbidden on pizza.

No.

You can put ketchup on a regular hot dog.

You can put mustard on it.

You can put sauerkraut on it.

You can put whatever the hell you want on it.

The only people who seem genuinely offended by this are the gatekeepers.

You know the type.

They’ve lived in Logan Square for fourteen months and now they’re prepared to lecture you about the proper application of condiments.

Relax.

Nobody is coming to take away your Chicago passport because you ordered ketchup.

Malört

And then there’s Malört.

Malört is supposedly this essential part of the Chicago experience.

Except it isn’t.

It wasn’t.

And it certainly wasn’t when I was growing up.

Somehow this stuff has gone from obscure, terrible-tasting liquor to The Official Beverage of Authentic Chicago™.

It isn’t.

It’s a manufactured Chicago tradition that seems to have become popular because people who moved here wanted something they could use to demonstrate that they were really Chicago now.

“Yeah, I’m from Naperville, but I’ve lived in Chicago for six years and I drink Malört.”

Congratulations.

I have bad news for you.

Drinking something that tastes like somebody distilled a tire fire doesn’t make you more Chicago.

And let’s be honest about what happens.

Some bartender gives a group of twenty-something transplants a round of Malört.

Everyone takes a shot.

Everyone makes the same horrible face.

Everyone laughs.

Someone takes a picture.

And suddenly it’s a Chicago tradition.

No.

That’s not a tradition.

That’s a bar trick.

Malört isn’t some sacred Chicago inheritance passed down from generation to generation.

It’s something that became fashionable because people started telling other people that it was fashionable.

You don’t have to drink Malört to be a Chicagoan.

You don’t have to hate the Cubs if you’re a Sox fan.

You don’t have to hate the Sox if you’re a Cubs fan.

And you can put ketchup on your damn hot dog.

You just can’t put it on a Chicago dog and then call it a Chicago dog.

There.

Now you can go back to Naperville.

Whenever I buy a pass, I immediately start doing the math. I need to know if I’m getting my money’s worth.

Gym membership? I mentally keep track of how many times I go and calculate the cost per visit. Ski pass? Same thing. I want to know exactly what each day of skiing cost me. There’s something deeply satisfying about watching that number drop. It turns recreation into a very boring accounting exercise, which apparently is how I like to have fun now.

This week I added a new one: Divvy.

Divvy is Chicago’s bike-share program. I bought an annual membership, which gives me 45-minute rides on regular bikes for free, plus reduced rates on e-bikes and scooters.

There was a promotion, so my one-year membership cost $99.

And the clock immediately started.

On Monday, I took a regular Divvy bike to an activity and rode one home. Two rides.

Cost per ride: $49.50.

Not great. But this is a long game.

The next day, I went to the gym and took a Divvy scooter home. That ride cost me an additional $1.56, bringing my total Divvy investment to $100.56.

However – and this is the important part -I now had three rides.

Cost per ride: $33.52.

Look at that. In 24 hours, I had slashed my transportation costs by almost a third.

Of course, I couldn’t leave it there. I calculated the minutes, too.

So far, I’ve used Divvy for 51 minutes, which puts me at approximately $1.97 per minute.

Again, terrible.

If someone offered me transportation for $118 an hour, I would probably decline.

But I’ve had the membership for less than a week. These are merely the startup costs. Every time I climb onto one of those free regular bikes, the number drops a little more.

And now I have a goal.

Not to exercise more. Not to reduce my carbon footprint. Not to explore Chicago by bike. Those would all be reasonable goals. No. I want to drive that cost-per-ride number into the ground. I want to reach the point where every Divvy ride costs me pennies. I want Divvy executives looking at my account and wondering if perhaps they made a terrible mistake.

So I’ll keep track and post an update here every now and then.

Current standings:

Total spent: $100.56
Total rides: 3
Cost per ride: $33.52
Total riding time: 51 minutes
Cost per minute: $1.97

Those numbers are going down. This may eventually become the cheapest transportation I’ve ever had. Or I may spend $99 on a bike membership and lose interest by October.

That’s why we track the dollars.