So my old friend Andrew Muchoney, Esquire, who I hadn’t seen in a couple of months–he’s a lawyer and works pretty much constantly–called me yesterday at work. Four Bears tickets for that night’s last preseason game had just fallen into his lap. The tickets were even free, which considering the face value was probably like $65 a pop, is something. I’d never been to a Bears game before–I’m not a big sports guy other than being a rabid Cubs fan, assuming that qualifies one as being a ‘sports’ fan–but it sounded cool, and like I said, I hadn’t seen Muchoney for a couple of months.
We were sadly unable to find anyone else to go on such short notice. In any case, I left work and took the El down to the Jackson station, which was like a hundred yards from Andrew’s law firm. When I got to the office, a guy there wouldn’t let me in. There was some complicated situation going on with an unaffiliated lawyer that Andrew knows who had been hanging around and acting in a manner that alienated several people, including Jen (Andrew’s fiancee). After Jen cleared me as not being involved in this matter, I was let in, but nobody knew where Andrew was. We figured he was making himself scarce until this other guy had definatively cleared out.
But no. Come close to 7:00, Andrew comes stumbling into his (personal) office, and tells Jen and me that he had gone to the law firm’s library, “closed my eyes for a minute,” and basically passed out dead asleep on the floor. (Which is why Jen hadn’t seen him when she had poked her head in there looking for him.) Finally he came to, although a button had popped off his shirt in the meantime. I should mention that aside from his normal insane working habits, Andrew had as well been to a Tori Amos concert the night before, and thus was running on even less sleep than usual.
So we finally head out, and grabbed a taxi. The driver laughed when Andrew told him to take us to Soldier Field, noting that it was more than a little busy and crowded out that way. But we told him to go ahead and try. After a short while, though, we got caught in jammed traffic while still many, many miles from the field. The game had already started, and we had no idea when we’d eventually get to our seats, given the traffic and our unfamilarity with the stadium.
And so, and with Andrew yet in a near narcoleptic state, we decided to just head back to the ‘burbs and just catch Zombi 3, which I’d rented a month ago after Gangrene Widescreen hilariously reviewed it, and which had been sitting atop my TV waiting for Andrew and I to get together and watch it. The driver mocked us when we basically told him to return us exactly where he’d picked us up, pointing out that he’d warned us we’d never get near the field. And what could we say, he was right.
So anyway, we took the El back to Park Ridge, stopped for a burger, then headed to my place and watched Zombi 3.
And that was how I almost attended my first Bears game.
