...The Chicago Suburban Life Cycle

My observation of The Chicago Suburban Life Cycle is as follows:

1.) Born in Chicago suburb in any of the six "Collar Counties". Primary & secondary education there, typically in a public or parochial school.

2.) Sent to university at U of I (or Purdue, or Indiana U ad nauseum). Practice counterculture-flavored conformity, fraternity/sorority conformity or other variety.

3.) Scuttle back to semi-urban familiarity and get corporate job hoping for a lifetime sinecure and blissful obscurity. Rent a townhouse, climb "the ladder" and spend spare time watching "the big game" or playing golf and yearning for those lost days of alternate conformity in college.

4.) Buy a North Avenue/Near North condo and spend time in clothing stores, Crate and Barrel, Starbucks, clubs, and gyms hooking up and being trendy. Wear a lot of black when you're not Spandex-jogging or showing off your six pack on the sand volleyball court.

5.) Decide it's "that time in your life" and produce spawn (with or without marriage, though suburban church ceremonies are both usual and portentous).

6.) Move to same/other suburb as parents, swimming upstream to your spawning ground. Buy a minivan, wither and die, leaving offspring to repeat the process, but without ever wondering what would have happened if you'd only wanted to change something, invent something or do something differently.