Lauren

Lauren may well be the most interesting Chicago relative I did not get to know. Well, she has an interesting job, anyway.

Technically Lauren is not related to me. She is my cousins' cousin, the daughter of my Auntie Nancy's sister. So we are related only through marriage.

Lauren, who graduated from college with a degree in psychology, works in a mental institution.

The evening I happened to chat with her, she'd just gotten off from the mental institution, where she spent the day chasing down a Filipino woman who insisted on running down the hallway naked. Every time someone put her clothes back on, she'd systematically strip and run. This apparently, had something to do with the fact that she'd watched her children die back in the Philippines.

Lauren, who is 24, must also ward off sexual advances from seedy psychiatrists who are twice her age.

And to top it off, one long-time patient told her she was getting fat.