A day without Mexicans in Chicago

What will happen if Conservatives, Racist, Minute Men and the rest wet dream ever comes true?

- When you wake up in the morning think twice about indulging in the luxury of someone else making your coffee and cooking your breakfast at a neighborhood cafe or restaurant. Almost all kitchen help, food-prep workers and cooks in Chicago are Mexican.

- If any of you reading this are business travelers staying in Chicago for a couple of days, you had better get used to the idea of making your own bed Thursday morning; the hotel housekeeping staff is almost entirely immigrant and largely Mexican.

- You'll have a slow day if you sell meat or poultry; close to 100 percent of Chicago's packing-house cutters and meat packers are Mexican.

- On construction crews the "Mexican work" will have to be done by other guys, since there will be a severe shortage of drywallers and roofers.

- City landscaping crews engaged in the ongoing beautification of Chicago parks, parkways and public spaces will need to pull a few weeds today; no trees or shrubbery will be on hand since the suburban nursery workers who dig, burlap-wrap and load trees and shrubbery for planting are, yes, you've guessed it, Mexican.

- And if you think you deserve a break tonight to think over your position on "the Mexican issue" and eat Japanese, you may experience a bit of a wait for your food since nearly a third of all Chicago sushi chefs are Mexican.

And that just in Chicago.