how this got past me, or furthermore, why i didn’t post something about this sooner after i heard about it, i guess we’ll never know. nonetheless, let me share with you something that blew my mind.

when i was in illinois for a week, i spent one night at my grandparents’ house in bourbonnais, illinois. while there, they alerted me to the fact that the kankakee metropolitan area (yes, that’s a real town. doesn’t it sound weird?) — of which the town i grew up in, bourbonnais, is a part — was rated the worst overall out of all the metropolitan areas considered in a recent study, or something like that. my grandparents didn’t know many details, but they did say that the town was mentioned on david letterman a few times because of its new title.

i just now remembered that i wanted to look up more information on this, and although it seems difficult to find much online, i did find the name of the book, the places rated almanac, that bestowed this lovely title on my former home. i did find a couple mentions, like one article which talks about letterman’s poking fun at the city, and another one that just shows the rankings, with kankakee at the bottom. at least one place includes a quote from the book in which the author says that although kankakee ranked dead last (that’s overall–apparently it’s not dead last in any specific category like recreation, safety, cost of living, etc.):

“it looks good,” Savageau [the author] says, “if you’re looking for a low cost of living, a 90-minute drive from Chicago, surrounded by prairies, where nothing much is happening.”

so that’s something that makes me laugh, basically. now i don’t feel bad that i was so bored and complained so much as a junior high kid with no car and nothing to do. apparently it wasn’t unfounded.

of course, it’s friday night, i’m living in the second biggest city in the country, and i’m sitting here in my apartment blogging, so maybe the problem wasn’t with the town i grew up in…

umm…. i gotta go.