Off topic - Rut, I need your help

[Mark Padgett]

A few years ago I was in the Loop at a hotel for a trade show. A bunch of us from Portland and Seattle went to lunch down the street at a restaurant in the Wrigley building. When we came out, it was pouring down rain. The light was red at the corner, but myself and a guy who was also originally from Chicago walked against the light right in front of a police car. The others stayed on the corner. When they finally got into the hotel lobby, totally soaked, they told us how stupid we were to jaywalk in front of the cops. The other guy and I just laughed. I told them there was no way a Chicago cop was going to get out of his patrol car in the rain to give a jaywalking ticket. My friend said that for a Chicago cop to leave the car in the rain, there would have to have been someone murdered on the hood of the car - and then he'd only get out if he had finished his coffee - and his lunch shift was over.