The Beefy Morning After (Traveling XXIII)

8.1.04 /Chicago, IL/

The second thing my friends asked me when I told them I was getting married was "when's the bachelor party?" Having to outdo the party I threw for Gunder two years ago, lots of planning went into last night's party. Planning that decided it might not be the worst idea to try and squeeze in a Cubs game. That's how we came to the conclusion, a conclusion we hammered home last night at the Cubby Bear, that we would re-descend on Wrigleyville the next day and see if we couldn't score ourselves some tix to the 1:20 against Philly. Thing is, we were all too drunk last night to realize that Sunday would bring Nomar to Chicago and Maddux would be attempting win number 300.

Yeah, we didn't get to see the game.

It was just as well, since it was a pretty warm day and I woke up feeling like ass from the night before.

You know I'm hung over when I get up and don't want to eat. I knew I was seriously fucked up when food seemed like a really disgusting idea all morning long. But, I had errands to run with my mom, so I showered, got dressed and headed out to the mall with her. It was nice to hang out with Mom for a while and we spent more than our allotted time wandering the mall looking for shoes for the wedding. My shoes, for my wedding. It was a bit surreal, but it didn't take nearly as long as I think she was hoping it would. To be honest, I kinda wished I could have stopped time and spent the entire afternoon with my mom, too.

Oh, and my mother proved that she still knows best. She forced me to eat a 9" Combo Beef and Sausage from Buona Beef. Yes, 9" of Italian sausage covered in Italian beef. It's an amazing cure for a hangover.

After the sandwhich I was on the EL to meet go meet Fesser, Mamajlo, Pete and Almejor for the game. While I was waiting for Fesser at the Addison Blue Line stop, a tourist couple came up to me. The saw the Cubs hat on my head and proceeded to ask me questions.

"How far is the stadium from here?"
-3 miles
"How hard will it be to get tickets on a day like today?"
-This is an important game for many reasons, so it'll he hard, but doable if you have the money
"How much money are we talking? $25 a seat?"
-This is where I suppressed a laugh, after all these folks were Belgian and so they deserved the benefit of the doubt. I explained scalping to them and they seemed to get really dejected at this point. In the end, they declined my offer to give them a game-day tour of Wrigleyville and got back on the EL to see a museum or something else instead. Oh well.

Fesser showed and we boarded the next bus to Wrigley. When we got down there Pete explained the situation. The scalpers had gone apeshit with their pricing due to the importance of the day and the situation wasn't looking good. Tickets were plentiful, but the prices were sick. With the ticket situation as grim as it was looking, we decided to walk the perimeter of the park looking for a Nomar shirt. Along the way we introduced Al to Wrigley and I think they got along decently well, which made me happy, I like it when my friends get along.

After one lap around Wrigley, we decided to give up on both our search for a Nomar shirt and tickets and headed down to Goose Island to watch the game and grab lunch (all for less than what the tickets would have cost us had we bought them.)

I still can't get over the lack of entrepreneurial creativity down at Wrigley, yo. Everyone wants to make a buck off of tickets, no one's thinking outside the box. Had I not been drunk off my ass the night before, I would have been busy printing Nomar shirts left and right, yo. It was really sad, a whole lot of people dropped the ball.

Lunch was great, and it was fun to watch the game with this group of friends. Worlds colliding, yo. I'd better get used to it. . .

After the game we all went our separate ways with me getting home just in time to head out with my folks to the rental car place. They picked up their car for the roadtrip to my wedding- a white Chrysler Pacifica. This thing is awesome. . .if it didn't get such craptacular gas mileage, I think I'd be in love. Oh well.

We went home from there and hung out at home for the rest of the night. My family was leaving town for my wedding in the morning .. this whole trip just took its millionth, but not last, turn towards the surreal.