I have never been a particularly good sick person.

Even when I was little, I'd tell whoever it was that was trying to take care of me to leave me alone and go back to bed. I'd be so insistent that eventually even my mother had no choice but to actually leave me alone.

The problem about my fancy new job in the city is that it is in the part of Chicago that everyone thinks about when they think of Chicago. It's right by all the notable things that you see in movies. Just in my commute I pass numerous landmarks that are famous. The Chicago Theatre, Millennium Park, Navy Pier, and State Street are a couple of them. Most of it depends on the traffic and time of day.

But my all time favorite street to pass through is Michigan Avenue. It's hands down my favorite part of Chicago. I could sit here and lie to you and say it's the spectacular buildings in the area. That it is just a beautiful and convenient place to get to. I would be lying. The buildings are beautiful, but so are half of the buildings in Chicago. And anyone who believes that anywhere in Chicago is easy to get to has obviously never had the pleasure of navigating our public transit system.

The reason the Magnificent Mile is my favorite place in the city is the sheer abundance of ridiculously priced luxury brands. Nowhere else in the city can you be surrounded by Tiffany and Co, Gucci, and Prada. You can walk from Louis Vuitton to the Coq d'Or at the Drake Hotel for a drink. I could spend hours at Cartier, staring at jewelry that is fit for a movie star or queen, and then wander over to Ferragamo. After that I can wander over to the Intercontinental Hotel and munch at Zest while gazing at people who make four million times the money I do.

It's a nice little slice of retail heaven right here in Chicago. Even if I don't shop there for fear that a purse will throw me into a debt that is rivaled only by my student loans, I still love it and can't think of a single place I'd rather be. It's an adult game of dress up. No one there knows that I can't afford a single thing I look at in the stores. Until they read this anyhow.

The problem with passing these things on a daily basis is that they become ordinary. Things seem to lose a bit of their magic when you are shuttled past them every day on your way to or from work or school. So when I left work early yesterday because I wasn't feeling well, the Magnificent Mile was more like "the Longest Street Ever Between Me and Home".

Being a shitty sick person, I hailed a cab to take me to the train station and settled in while my cab driver, who looked like he came straight from a police line up drove down Michigan Avenue.

We were almost at the Drake when I realized how sick I really was, and it dawned on me.

I had the cabbie pull over just past the Drake hotel, where I proceeded to, at 2:30 in the afternoon on a Wednesday, hang out of a cab and throw up on to the Magnificent Mile.

It was only when I looked up to close the car door that I saw the group of Asian tourists standing six feet away from me, staring open mouthed in my direction.

I did the only thing I could think to do in that situation. I smiled, waved and said "Welcome to Chicago!"

I'm sure the pictures will be showing up on the internet shortly.