My Final Thoughts on Mill Creek—Until Next Time

The people in Mill Creek are revolting!

Now, before you hit the submit button—again—I’m not necessarily saying you west-of-Geneva-folk should avail yourselves of a bathtub more often, nor am I casting any specific aspersions or allegations upon your questionable character (yet).

No! What I’m saying is, considering the imminent school boundary revisions and Shodeen Management’s threat to drop 390 apartments in the northwest corner of your self-contained homogonous nirvana, much like it was back in the heady days of 1861, secession is in the air.

But when I say secession, despite whatever you cartography challenged Mill Creekers might think, we’re not talking about severing yourselves from the city of Geneva. As I keep trying to tell y’all, you were never a part of Geneva to begin with, if for no other reason than we just can't stand the thought.

C’mon! Isn’t Eagle Book punishment enough? Quite frankly, we’d rather have to regularly put up with east siders than to have to listen to you all shriek and whine about every perceived inequity that comes your way.

But back to our west suburban geography lesson.

Just because Shodeen applied the Geneva appellation to your rural route addresses in an effort to get you to pay far too much money for some utterly unremarkable housing, that doesn’t mean it’s true. You may grudgingly remit taxes to District 304 schools, the Geneva Park District, and our library, but as anyone west of Peck Road should clearly understand, that doesn’t make you Genevans.

For example, Mayor Kevin Burns only chuckles whenever you threaten to vote him out of office. There’s no point in calling Third Ward Alderman Ron Singer about the rogue chipmunk that’s terrifying your perpetually fretting family because he’ll just hang up on you. If you dare to petition Geneva public works about, well, anything, they’ll completely and rightfully ignore you.

Don’t feel too bad about that last one, they do the same thing to real Genevans, too.

So here’s how you not-so-quick-to-catch-on-to-some-concepts Mill Creekers can quickly determine if you live within the city limits. I know it’s a scary thought, but briefly step outside in the real world and take a furtive glance at the front of your house before you feel the irresistible urge to retreat back inside and re-lock your door. If your address has a letter in it, then you might be a redneck.

You see, I’m not just encouraging you to secede from Geneva because my fear is, through some statutory prestidigitation (for you Mill Creekers that means magic), that strained double negative will actually make you a legal part of our fair city.

No! I’m asking you to think bigger—much bigger. I’m asking you to follow the old South’s example by seceding from the entire United States. You really do have an awful lot in common.

What I’m sayin’ is, all this talk about men in gray uniforms marching down Herrington Drive ain’t just whistlin’ Dixie! You could call your new principality “Millcreekia,” appoint a king, raise a standing army, and perhaps even threaten the USA. This, of course, would force us to invade and subsequently thow billions of dollars in foreign aid at you in an effort to assuage our imperialist guilt.

Think about it! There’d be no more Barack Obama to blame for every last ill that besets you. You could keep those, as one resident put it at that Monday meeting, “low income” apartment dwellers from taking as much as one step across your borders.

Beyond that, you wouldn’t have to worry about border patrols because no one in their right mind would want to live out there anyway.

Your national bird would be the mosquito because it works symbolically on so many levels, your flag would consist of a wailing toddler rampant on a field of white, and your national anthem would be Little Jackie’s, The World Should Revolve Around Me.

I get verklempt just thinking about it. Viva la Millcreekia!

On second thought, it would never work. What this secession really means is, rather than having the rest of us subsidize your extravagant socialist lifestyle (see the new kindergarten teacher), you’d have to pay for absolutely everything yourselves and that would go over about as well as school board member Matt Henry’s suggestion to bus some elementary school children the very same mile to a slightly different school.

And this wonderful scenario had all the makings of a modern day Gone With the Wind too—the Carol Burnett version, that is. Ah, well! I suppose there’s some solace in the knowledge that the entire world now knows Mill Creek is not and has never been a part of Geneva.

Now we need to start working on Eagle Brook.