Chicago can be a rough city. Sometimes minor inconveniences in your endeavors around town can ruin your day and leave you wondering whether you can really make it in this city. Sometimes it seems like a higher power just isn't on your side. With that in mind, here are 18 signs that you've been cursed by the Chicago gods.
1. Your Uber driver is five blocks away and driving in the wrong direction, then takes another wrong turn.
2. It takes 10 taps of your Ventra card before it's accepted by the bus scanner, much to the chagrin of everyone waiting in line behind you.
3. It rains at every summer music festival you attend.
4. "This train is currently experiencing delays because workers are on the tracks ahead. We will be moving shortly."
5. You see an empty train car during rush hour—hallelujah! It's only when you sit down that the stench of human waste hits you.
6. Every time you find a "beautiful Logan Square apartment with a view" on Craigslist, it ends up being a garden apartment in Belmont Cragin.
7. The last bus of the night doesn't stop for you, and you're suckered into paying for an Uber at surge rate.
8. You get splashed on a water taxi ride, and you smell like river water during a visit to Chinatown.
9. Your parents can't wait to take you out to dinner while they're visiting—at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. on Navy Pier.
10. It's a beautiful day for a bike ride on the 606, but you're stuck behind a trail-spanning mass of gabbing parents pushing strollers.
11. You step in something soft at the dog beach that clearly isn't sand.
12. You run upstairs and catch the red line train at Belmont just in time, then realize it's actually a Purple Line express heading north to Evanston.
13. The Metra trip to the suburbs you committed to is on one of the few weekends where drinking on the train is forbidden.
14. You order a feast of Thai food from GrubHub and fall asleep before the delivery arrives.
15. You have to listen to your friend cry after her improv show because it was truly terrible.
16. After parting a sea of tourists on Mag Mile, you arrive to the Apple store to get your phone fixed, only to find that the problem was a lump of pocket lint jammed in your charger port.
17. You finally get a patio seat at your favorite restaurant, and it's next to a guy who's vaping.
18. Your best friend finds the tiniest bit of success and moves to New York.