Canceled flights. Missed connections. A long day getting back to Chicago.

On my first flight I sat next to a nice, but talkative elderly woman from Seattle. When she found out I was from Chicago she told me the following story.

"When I was in college, in Oklahoma, we had three boys in one of my classes from Chicago. On the first day we all went around introducing ourselves and one boy said, 'I'm from a small town just north of Chicago.' I don't remember the name. Then the next boy stood up and said, 'I'm actually from a small town just north of that small town north of Chicago.' Then the next boy got up and said, 'You know, I'M from a town just north of those other two towns north of Chicago.' I'll never forget it. All three of them were from Chicago."

She was very sweet, and I politely said something like, "Oh," or "You don't say." But I was tired and cramped into an airplane seat and secretly thinking, "At your age, after all those years, THAT'S your Chicago story?"