Downer's Grove

I'm interrupting the Crucible Connections series for some of my own banter. It's my blog and I get to schedule the programming how I wish.

The city of Chicago has a suburb called Downer's Grove. This town used to be home to a Sears Outlet Store before there were such things as Outlet Malls. At the beginning and middle of every school year, my mom would herd my brother and I together, and we'd head to Downer's Grove for clothes shopping.

Because i was five, six, seven years old, I had some irrational fears. Specifically pertaining to Downer's Grove, I was terrified of the place. Why? Because I thought that's where they kept everyone who had Down Syndrome, and I didn't want to catch it. Yeah, I know, you can't catch Down Syndrome. Try to explain that to a six year old. We'd drive into town, and I'd duck below the window line of the car, I'd fight with my mom when we got to the Sears because I didn't want to get out, I'd scream exactly like the little bastard that I was. The worst was the time I actually saw a kid who had Down's at the Sears Outlet.

ANYWAY, there's a reason I'm posting this. Not because it's funny, which you gotta admit, it kind of is, and not to make myself look bad, which it kind of does. I'm posting this because two people you may be familiar with after the first (and hopefully perennial) Crucible Connections series, M-Town Mikey and Bobby Fair Housing don't believe it. They think it's some sort of elaborate ploy. The inroads to my secret and cunningly insidious plan to lure them into my cult of personality, I guess.

M-Town Mikey doesn't believe that a six year old would even know about Down Syndrome. Clearly, I didn't know all that much about it because I was terrified I was going to catch it. But I knew it existed. Which is too hard to believe.

Bobby Fair Housing thinks it's a stretch that a six-year-old would come up with it on their own. Maybe, he suggests, it would be easier to believe if my brother or father told me that to scare me. Apparently, six-year-olds are incapable of abstract thought. I suppose this is possibly a legitimate point.

Whatever the case may be, it's true, and I'm still kind of scared of Downer's Grove, and I'm about to turn 30. So, like, that's that. Although, my cult of personality is open to anyone who wants to join.