Poor readers can listen here.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Since moving to Lincoln Square last October, I have gained thirty-six pounds. At this moment, I weigh 187, and believe me, it ain't muscle. I have become what is referred to in medical journals as a Skinny Fat Person, which is to say that I have skinny arms, skinny legs, and a grotesquely fat belly. I look like a dough ball with four stick stuck in it. Every morning I push my fat gut into the train, and people take surreptitious glances at my midsection, wondering, no doubt, how I managed to get so pregnant.

And so you can imagine my concern when I read that the city of Chicago is sinking. It's not enough that I have become so hideously fat that all my boxers have magically turned into boxer briefs. My newfound girth, I thought, is also sinking the only city I have ever loved.

It turns out, however, that the two phenomena are unrelated. I mean, I really am gaining weight at an astonishing rate and Chicago really is sinking about a millimeter a year. But Chicago is sinking not because of my fatness but instead because of the lousy Canadians, with whom we apparently share some kind of geological seesaw. Canada is rising; we're sinking.

Now, I am not a scientist, but I am a person who is currently on pace to weigh 400 pounds by February of 2006, and therefore I know something about seesaws. Specifically, I know that when it comes to seesaws, fat sinks. I realize that I do not have science on my side here, but common sense dictates that we in Chicago have to shed some weight.

So listen: If everyone in Chicago just loses 20 pounds, it won't do a lick of good. The real weight around here is in buildings, which is why I am proposing a radical plan to even out the international seesaw by relocating the western suburbs to Canada. Hinsdale, you'll be the richest suburb of Toronto. Niles, you'll be a mere twenty minutes from sunny Calgary. And I've got ten square miles of desolate arctic misery in the Yukon Territory for you, Schaumburg. If Chicago is still fatter than Canada after shedding our lesser suburbs, I propose that we begin exiling select Chicagoans and their homes to Montreal. Parlez-vous Francais, Monsieur Daley? Voulez-vous couchez avec les Canadiens, Monsieur Reinsdorf?

Even if such drastic measures fail, I'm staying on the sinking ship of Chicago, and I'll tell you why. My girlfriend. That's right, people. I may spread 187 pounds very poorly around my six foot frame, but I have a girlfriend, and she loves Chicago so much she'd gladly sink into Lake Michigan with it. Chicago may not have Canada's cheap prescription drugs, excellent public schools, low crime rate, or geologic stability, but it's got my girl. And she's as funny as Schadenfreude, as smart as Gretchen Helfrich, and so gorgeous that I can only describe her as "even sexier than Steve Edwards' voice."

There are some things I'll sink for, and Chicago's got two of them: love; and juicy, fatty, Atkins-unfriendly, chili-soaked hot dogs. And now, it's time. Say my name, you sonorous baritone.

Steve Edwards: John Green-

John: Oh God that's good, Steve. One more time.

Steve: John Green is a regular contributor to 848 on Chicago Public Radio.