Well, I’m here and tired as all fuck. Randy dropped me off at the train station right about 12:50 in the pm. The train was a little late in taking off, but we were moving by, shit, about 2:15ish, maybe 2:30. I was listening to the Cubs game and kicking back when I was informed that the area I was in was reserved for a Boy Scout group which we would be picking up in Naperville. Motherfucker, had I know the train picked up in Naperville, I would have just gotten on there. One might think that being by 15 Boy Scouts would be annoying, but to be honest, they were fine. Of course, I also had my cd player and/or radio on, so it was all good.

I don’t know how many of you have traveled via Amtrak, but they have an actual dining car and an observation car which you could sit and stare out the window. I spent some time in there, as it was very nice. I made a reservation for dinner at 5 in the PM.

When I went to eat dinner, the waitress dude placed me at a table with an older couple, old enough to be my parents and an older guy who was even older then that. I have to admit, this was a little weird, if you can believe it, I didn’t really know what to say to them. The older guy was sitting next to me and was very introverted. The couple were keeping to themselves, they even talked low. I struggled to come up with something to say to them that wouldn’t be offensive or annoying. I was wearing my “Save Darfur” shirt and finally, after about 15 minutes at the table, the lady asked me if I had been to Darfur. I explained that I had not, since it would be too long of a drive. Her question turned out to be the icebreaker we needed to start talking. Turns out, they are from Cape Cod and were going from Boston to San Francisco to see their daughter. Geez, and I thought I had a long trip ahead of me. The guy next to me, who turned out to be a complete dumbass, was returning home to Denver from Atlanta.

I mention he was a dumbass because I asked them if we had passed the Mississippi river yet, knowing that the river is the boarder for Illinois and Iowa(I was in the bathroom and didn’t know if I had missed it). He responded by saying “no, we have a ways to go for that, the Mississippi seperate Iowa from Nebraska”. I dunno, maybe maps were different when he was growing up, but I had been over the boarder enough times to know that the river divided IL from Iowa. I also have seen a map, just a time or two. Finally, we hit a large body of water and he said “Now, I don’t know what river this is, but I know it is not the Mississippi” Oh really Gilligan? Because, overthere to the left is the Quad Cities with a riverboat casino that is on the river. In fact, I can see it right now. Not only that, but I have been on the President’s Casino on the Mississippi river. I wanted to correct him, but decided not to and just let him live in his fantasy world in which the Mississippi divides Iowa and Nebraska, where Mexico is our neighbors to the north, and were George Bush is a great president.

There were actually Amish people on the train, who knew they did trains. They are a friendly bunch, but their issue is that………..er…………..they aren’t exactly the most, how should I say, hygenic people in the world. In fact, I walked through their car and, well, it stunk. I would rather deal with hyper boy scouts than stinky Amish people. Don’t they believe in showers? Or is it deodorant that they take issue with?

They played King Kong in the obverservation car (Amtrak, not the stinky Amish), I watched a little bit of it while listened to Green Day’s American Idiot. Soon, though, I headed for bed.

Turns out, sleeping on a train really really sucks. Big giant ass. The train is very bumpy and occasionally vibrates. And, the boy scouts kept getting up and walking around. Needless to say, I think I slept off and on, little cat naps for about a total of 90 minutes. The night was endless, I never though the sun would come up. It was truly one of the longest nights of my life. Plus, they didn’t give us blankets, which sucked because it was chilly in there. Finally, as the sun was in the process of waking up, I walked to the observation deck to view it coming up. One of the boy scouts was there and I talked to him for about a half hour. He was probably about 15 and pretty interesting, telling me all about how they were going to go rafting and hiking in Colorado.

That’s all for now. I’m going camping today with Carmen (my sister) and her kids and husband. She is getting packed and ready, so I should be going, but I wanted to get this all in here before I forgot any of it.

Just a quick post, have been busy lately, and won’t be posting for a
few days, heading to Denver tomorrow via an old fashioned choo choo
train!!! Wish me luck everybody, will post all about it later.

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Ok, I know that from my Christian friends, I will take some lumps about
this, but damnit, the Christian that made up that fake pill really
pissed me right the fuck off. Its like they are saying that
homosexuality is nothing more than a curable disease, which, is
downright and blatantly offensive. If you didn’t like this, you won’t
like the fact that I plan to write more about this in the future. Its
kinda like my way of fighting back against those fuckers.

I went out with this guy named Mark tonight. No, not my brother, but a
different Mark, who lives in Rockdale (Rockdale is right next to
Joliet, in fact, its not too far from the Empress). I guesstimated that
I would get there between 6:45 and 7, which was pretty right on, I got
there about 6:50ish. I knocked at the door and got no response. I
knocked a couple of times and still nothing. I was startingto think he
either wasn’t home or was just getting into the shower. I started to
walk away to call him from a pay phone (remember people, I don’t own a
cell phone) when I heard somebody say “Hey”, so I turned around to see
him standing at the door. He was completely nak………..wait, I seem
to have gotten that part wrong, he was wearing a t-shirt and jeans. I
walked in and headed straight for the can, I wanted to shoot up a bit
before doing anything. Or pee. I don’t know,peeing, shooting up, its
all the same, right?

Anywho, I walked out and asked him if he wanted to get something to
eat. He said he was not very hungry, but he would go. He has a bird,
which I asked to see, so we headed to his bedroom to get the bird. For
some reason, his house was very dark, which could help to explain why I
didn’t see the all glass end table that he had in his living room. In
fact, my leg didn’t see it at all when I walked right the fuck into the
thing. I guess, everybody has an embarrassing moment every now and
then.

We ate at some restaurant called……………uh, come to think of it,
I don’t know the name of it, I think it was Melrose something. Turns
out, our waiter was gay. So was another waiter. Also, the cow that my
steak came from was also gay. Seems to be a very gay friendly
restaurant. As for the meal itself, we couldn’t be any more different
in food tonight, I got a steak and he got pancakes. I found it more
than a little odd that he chose not to but syrup on his pancakes. How
could you not have syrup? Sometimes, that the best part. Speaking of
odd I had hash browns with my steak, what can I say, though, I love
hash browns and don’t get them often enough.

Anywho, that was a brief synopsis of my night. He seems like a fun guy,
very social and outgoing and kinda happy go lucky. Oh, that reminds me,
I’m supposed to call him.

 I need to start a fundraising campaign for myself, and this is an extremely serious situation. I need lots of money for attorneys and various other litigation fees. See, I’m in a dire need to sue. In fact, some might consider the situation grave. I’m going to sue the “Can you hear me now?” guy  from Verizon Wireless. Seems I look like him. Or so I’m told. When an endless stream of strangers come up to you and say “Can you hear me now?” its a dead giveaway that you might look like the “Can you hear me now?” guy. Ok, so there has not been a single stranger that has said that to me. In fact, its only been one or 2 people I know that have said that too me. But, nevertheless, here is a pic of the guy, you be the judge

See, this whole definitely necessary lawsuit was made essential thanks in part to a loser by the name of Allen Heckard. This guy is suing Michael Jordan and Nike for the small nominal fee of $832 million! Here is a pic of the two nearly identical twins:

Here are some of the differences between the 2. One is 6’6, the other is 6’2. One is 42 years old, the other is 51. One has his own shoe, has played in the NBA for 13 years, is known worldwide and has millions and millions of dollars, the other………..well, apparently, he has borrowed money from his relatives for lawyer. The lawsuit accuses Jordan of defamation, permanent injury, emotional pain, and suffering. I mean, I don’t know about you, but as a kid growing up in Chicago, I always dreamed of the day that I could be “Like Allen Heckard, if I could be like Allen Heckard” what with my many Allen Heckard jerseys and posters. And after all, it must be so tough for him to have to shave his head everyday to look more like Mike, if only he had a choice. And you can see how Jordan caused him all that he said he has caused him. I mean, the nerve of Michael to be born 9 years younger, work his ass off to become the best basketball player ever, win 6 championships (including hitting a shot over Craig Ehlo, thank you very much, Ashley’s Cavs). I’m sure when you think about it, all of this was designed to get even at that evil Allen Heckard for having the nerve to kinda look like Jordan’s 3rd cousin.

Still, this gives me an idea. In addition to the “Can you hear me now?” guy, over the years, I have been told I look like Sammy Davis Jr, Tom Hanks, Jay Leno, Ben Stiller, Woody Harrleson, Weird Al Yankovic, Scott Stapp, Scottie Pippen, and Chester Cheese. I know it sounds like I’m making that list up, but I’m not, people have told me all of those over the years. So, I think I’ve got a case. The way I see it, Hanks owes me his Oscar for Philadelphia and I won’t stop until I get it. Oh, and Woody? That fucker should give me the profit on the pot he sells, after all, I’m always getting people asking me if I “have the mad munchies, yo”. And if it weren’t for Scott Stapp, people wouldn’t be telling me that I suck so much. Ok, they still would, but it wouldn’t be for “One Last Breath”. Just think, though, of all the money I could get. I mean, I couldn’t get anything from Stapp, I’m quite certain he is living under a bridge somewhere.

One could see how traumatic it would be having people say you look like a one eyed, black, Jew or like a deadbeat late night host. But traumatic looking like fucking Jordan? I mean, this is Michael Fucking Jordan, if I were a black guy, I would consider it a compliment. If it caused so much emotional pain and suffering, then why did he continue to play basketball at the local YMCA? That is why he is charging emotional pain and suffering, because everybody made fun of him because he couldn’t dunk. It would be kinda like people making funny of me because that song I wrote for Tony Danza was better than anything Scott Stapp has written. The guy is also trying to get $200 mil for defamation, claiming he ran into Larry Bird and he “viciously trash talked me, obviously thinking I was Jordan.” How does he know it was Bird and not a Bird look alike? Because of my distinct Weird Al traits, people are always asking me to write songs, like parodies of lame Scott Stapp songs. Man, can you tell how much I don’t like that waste? Holy shit, does Scott Stapp suck. Maybe I will sue him, but not because he looks like me, but because he sucks so much, his music is ruining my ride to work.

So, if you want to give money towards my cause of suing to get my dignity and look back, please contribute. I promise that if I win my case, I will autograph a picture of whatever celeb you think I look like.

Today was a day filled with surprising food that was very good,
although also very unhealthy. At work, they were selling pie for
charity so that was my justification for eating the VERY VERY VERY VERY
KICK ASS all chocolate cheesecake pie. Holy shit, this stuff gave Eli’s
a serious run for its money. In fact, and I don’t say this lightly, it
arguably was better than Eli’s Cheesecake, and those of you that know
me know how I feel about Eli’s.

Within a couple of minutes after I got home from work, Dave called to
invite me to their house for dinner, he told me to “get my ass here and
bring my brother” as everybody was there to say goodbye to Tom one last
time before he is off to Iraq. So, I quickly exercised before my stinky
self headed over there. Just about everybody was there, both sets of
Johnsons, Scooty and Kris and even Christie. This was total last
second, and for being last second, Kelli cooked up one hell of a meal,
spaghetti and some sort of chicken stuff which was really good. We also
had ice cream and cookies for desert. I swear, sometimes, Dave and
Kelli are just too good to all of us. They are always doing things like
this and refusing to let anybody give any money or bring anything. We
should all have a dinner for them sometime.

Anywho, that’s all for now. I had an idea for a semi funny post, but it will have to wait until tomorrow.

My friends and I have a friend, Tom, who is in the Air Force and soon
will be going to Iraq for a year. Anywho, he and his wife Julie along
with their 3 kids were visiting from New Mexico (he is stationed at a
base out there right now) so we decided  to have a get together
for them at Scooty’s house last night. I got off work at 6 in the PM
and headed right over there. Traffic was not nearly as bad as I thought
it would be, in fact, it only took me 40 minutes to get there and that
included stopping off at a White Hen Pantry to pick up cheesy poofs.
When I got there, the only people that were there were Heather and her
2 kids and John. Soon, though, everybody else started to arrive, such
as Keith, Tom and Julie, Mark and Amy and Dave and Kelli. Everybody had
their kids with them, which was funny to see some of the kids interact
with each other. For example, Dave and Kelli’s baby, Natalie, likes to
try to kiss Mark and Amy’s baby Addison. Natalie will open her mouth
and grab Addison by the shirt and try to pull her closer to her to kiss
her. Addison being the wimpy baby that she is (I know that sounds bad,
but even her parents say they have a wimpy baby) she always starts
crying when Natalie does this. Its still funny as hell.

After a while, I found myself talking about the war with Tom and Dave.
Tom was telling me that some day, he wants to be president. He was also
telling me how much he hates George Bush, but how he wants to go to
Iraq and “do what we do”. He has fought in the first Iraq war, but this
new war, as we know is far different from the first Iraq war. As I sat
there listening to him talk, I starred directly at the American flag
which Scooty has hanging from the front of his house. It blew ever so
gently and for some reason, it just took on a whole knew meaning right
then.

About 9:30 I realized that John, Tom, Julie, Keith, Heather and all the
kids would not be going anywhere. So, I decided to stay as well and
started drinking it up. I didn’t feel like having beer, so instead I
was drinking Captain and Pepsi, which I know everybody might be saying
“why not just call it Captain and Coke” but Todd insisted that it was
different. I have to say, I agree with him, as we all know, Coke sucks
Pepsi’s ass, so why would I even consider having Coke when there was
Pepsi to drink. As for the rest of the night, it was kinda tame for our
parties, I think it was because the kids were there. Sure, we hung out
in the backyard until 4:30AM, but we didn’t do any of the wild and
cra…………..ok, maybe we did a little, now that I think about it.

I went to sleep in Tim’s bed, which is Kris’s 11 year old son’s bed.
NO, HE WAS NOT IN THE BED WITH ME, the kids were actually with their
dad, so we had plenty of room for us to sleep. As usual, I slept like
shit, not falling asleep until just after 5 and waking up about 8:15AM.
I went downstairs without a shirt on to get some water and saw that 6
year old Nicole was up, as was John. Nicole saw me and started to come
toward me to give me a hug. She stopped before getting to me saying “I
don’t want to hug with with that hair on your chest. I will just hug
your arm instead.” I guess she isn’t used to a hair chest, after all,
there are rumors of hair on her dad’s chest, but those rumors have yet
to be fully confirmed. Still, when you think about it, every other time
she has hugged me, it has always been with my hair chest, its just that
all the other times I had a shirt on.

Soon, I went back to bed. After a few minutes, I heard somebody trying
to open the door, which I had locked. I opened the door and it was
Nicole. I told her I was going back to bed and sent her on her way,
locking the door again. I tossed and turned for what seemed like an
eternity, finally falling back asleep sometime after 9. Right about
9:55, I was woken up to  somebody trying to turn the doorknob and
open the door and they just didn’t seem to understand the concept of a
door being locked. I frustratingly got up and opened the door and lo
and behold, it was Nicole again, she wanted to get a toy out of the
room. Ughhhhh.

This time, I got up for good. Heather and John were both up this time,
so I asked Heather to make coffee. She said she had to hurry up and
make it before Scooty came downstairs and told her she was doing it
wrong. When one is at Scooty’s house, he has to do everything because
nobody ever knows how to do anything correctly. Yeah, its annoying, but
what can I say, its Scooty. I had a healthy breakfast of coffee and
oatmeal.

I will skip the next couple of hours, nothing too exciting happened, we
all just sat around eating and talking. Finally, about noon, Scooty
told us that he needed to go to Menard’s to buy a shed. Of course, we
were all parked on the driveway, so he needed either all of us to move
our cars or just have one of us that had a free car let him use the
car. Since Scooty driving is never a good idea, I volunteered to drive
him. Also, there was sort of an ulterior motive, there is a really cute
guy I used to play card with that worked at Menards. His name was
Dustin, and I haven’t seen or heard from him in over a year, so I had
no idea if he even still worked there, but I was dying to find out.

Scooty was supposed to be meeting Rusty at Menards, since Rusty has a
truck which could be used to transport the shed back to the house.
While Scooty went to find him, I wandered the store looking for Dustin,
even though I didn’t expect to see him. I was pleasantly surprised to
actually find him. Even though we only played cards together a handful
of times, he instantly remembered me. He still looked cute, but not as
cute as I remembered him. However, this time, he seemed gay. I had
always been attracted to him and my gaydar went off before when I was
around him, but this time, it was going fucking haywire. Now, the thing
about these home improvement stores is that there are always hot, young
guys working there and a lot of them seem to be gay. Case in point,
cutie Ty works for Home Depot in California. And a lot of times, these
guys wear shorts. Dustin had a cute and pretty gay co worker that was
standing near us wearing shorts. I asked Dustin why he wasn’t wearing
shorts and the co worker laughed and said “oh, because he doesn’t like
his legs” and Dustin got sort of uncomfortable and told him that wasn’t
the case. I could sense a sexual tension between the 2, I believe they
have some sort of sexual relationship.

I guess in a way, it was my lucky day because Dustin told me that he
was going to be quitting Menards in a couple of weeks to work in a club
downtown. Yeah, that would be another sign that he was gay. He told me
he was going to do it because of the money and because its a good way
to meet girls. Suuuuuuuure, girls. Anywho, he gave me his email address
and phone number and told me to call him when we play cards. We
actually were going to play cards tonight, but he already had plans.

After I got back to Scooty’s, we were all sitting around talking about
Jt and his devil girlfriend when I told Tom and Julie that I’m gay.
Much to my surprise, they were both didn’t have a clue. Sure, they had
heard everybody making jokes about me being gay, but that’s all they
thought they were was jokes. Julie has a gay sister and Tom thinks he
might have a gay brother, so it was no big deal for them. Tom was
actually a little upset that nobody told him, since everybody else
found out 2 years ago. They have been away for such a long time and its
not often that we get a chance to see them, so it just never seemed to
be the time or place to tell them. I just casually mentioned that Jt’s
devil girlfriend hates me because I’m gay and that was it.

I really had a great time with everybody this weekend. Even though not
everybody was there, it was a blast to hang out with all of the people
that did make it. Sure, I have other friends, but there is nothing
quite like hanging out with my core group of friends. Everything just
feels so normal and natural since we all have been hanging out for
years. We don’t have the chance to hang out nearly as often as we used
to, so I really cherish the opportunities to hang out.

I showed up at Sean’s house about 6:30,
early enough to whip Scott’s ass at a couple of games of beanbags
before poker. I must have used all my winning mojo up on beanbags,
because I sucked ass at cards, in fact, I didn’t even win one hand and
was the first one out. Normally this would suck, but we were watching
Goodfellas, which is one of, if not my favorite movie of all time.
Anywho, I didn’t stay for the 2nd game and I just headed home rather
early.

Today at work we had a “white elephant sale” (I think that’s just a
fancy way of saying garage sale) and a silent auction (that’s a normal
way of saying silent auction). The whole thing was for charity, which
is always cool. Anywho, as part of the auction, they had tickets to a
White Sox game against the Mariners. Its on Sept 21, so potentially,
they could be clinching the division that day. I saw this and instantly
thought
about my Sox fan friends. The biding started at $30, so I figured I
would have to at least double that to get the tickets. My initial
instinct was $100. But, I came to my senses and bid $80. Shortly after
dropping my bid into the box, I began to have auctioneers remorse. For
starters, these were 2 upper deck seats, and to be honest, at the most,
the face value of each ticket is probably $20. Sure, if I won I would
get the tickets, 2 Sox hats and a pennant. But, I’m not even a Sox fan,
so why the hell would I want to go? Now I’m essentially in a contest
that I don’t want to win. Next, I found out that they were actually
giving away TWO sets of tickets, so that actually improved my chances
of winning. Great. Just what I need, better odds to win something I
don’t want to actually win. This is classic Mike.

My boss was one of the people that was in charge of the auction.
Towards the end of the day, I walked up to her and asked her if I won.
She said I had not, which made me feel better, because, how the hell am
I going to get rid of 2 tickets that are probably double the face
value, its not like I can legally sell them for what I paid for them,
even if it is for charity. I walked back to my desk and had a surprise
waiting for me: 2 Sox hats and the pennant, I get the fucking tickets
on Friday when I pay for what I won! That’s right, my boss, being a big
Sox fan an knowing I’m a big Cub fan, pulled a fast one on me. I
actually won the fucking tickets! So, if anybody is interested in
seeing the Sox play Ichiro and the Seattle Mariners on Thursday Sept 21
at 7:05 in the PM, plunk over $80 and the tickets, 2 hats, and pennant
are all yours. Just my fucking luck, I can’t lose tickets that I don’t
want to have. I swear, sometimes, I would rather have no luck at all
than good luck. Shit, this aint even luck. Its my own damn fault, after
all, I’m the one that outbid everybody else. Fuck me!!!

I’m sure all of you have heard, North Korea has took a missile for a
test shot in our general direction. This is potentially cause for
concern, until you find out that the missile only went 43 miles before
crashing into the ocean. Now, I’m not one for war, honestly, I still
think we have a long way to go before we get to the war stage with
North Korea, but thanks to Bush, even if North Korea were more
competent, we wouldn’t even have the option for war. See, this is
reason #84578513584451247421548000157 why the Iraq war was a stupid
fucking idea. For starters, of course North Korea has it out for us,
Bush named them in the Axis of Evil, and we have already invaded and
waged war on one of the other Axies, if I were North Korea, common
sense says they might be next, so its time to prepare. Also, because we
are stuck in a never ending war in Iraq from which we can’t just up and
leave, we really don’t have the resources to take care of business
should it get that serious in North Korea. Now we are faced with having
to rely on the United Nations to help us cool down North Korea. Is it
just me, or is there a slight chance we might just fuck ourselves into
another war?

Yesterday, I had to help Mark with some back breaking, hard labor. He
is replacing his concrete in his backyard with brick, so this meant we
had to remove all his concrete. Hardest 3 hours of work I ever had, I
tells ya. On the plus side, I got to use a jackhammer for the first
time ever, so I can mark that off the list of things I have done that I
don’t ever need to do again. Granted, I only used it for less then 2
minutes, but it was enough for me. Those things are heavy, loud as
hell, and hard to control. And me being weak and wimpy, its not a good
tool for me to be using. Anywho, concrete is pretty damn heavy and I
had no idea there is wire mixed in there. We were removing it and
putting it on the side of his garage for now, which was a lot of work
but even more work once the damn wheel barrel broke. Needless to say,
it sucked major ass.

Mark and Amy gave me a book to read called “A Child Called It.” Have
any of you read this thing? Holy shit, its sad and tough to read. Its
basically an auto biography of a guy that was physically and verbally
abused by his mother. I’ve read about 50 pages so far and its really
tough to read. In fact, I even let a guy at work read it and about
halfway through he gave it back to me and said that he just couldn’t
read it anymore, it was too tough especially since he has kids. Anywho,
I just couldn’t help but think of this kid being abused the whole day.

Well, I don’t want to bring anybody down, so its story time. And yes,
this one is true. It’s a classic Mike and Dave story, something only
the 2 of us could do, such as the time we had the deep fryer upside
down.

About 6 or 7 years ago, back when Jt, Dave and I were roadies for my
friends band, we were coming home late at night, probably 2 or 3 in the
am, from a show in the northern burbs (we live in the southwest burbs).
I was driving Kelli’s 4 door Saturn, Jt was in the passenger’s seat and
Dave was behind me, Kelli behind Jt. All was quiet in the car because
they were all drunk and semi passed out. Anywho, I come up to a toll booth. I don’t know if
any of you are familiar with Saturn’s, but the buttons to lower the
windows are in between the front and passenger seats. Anywho, I’m
slowing down on my approach to the booth and at the same time trying to
unroll the window. I’m not really looking at the buttons, all I know is
that its not going down. All I could hear was this:

Dave: “AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! “
Me:  “What the fuck, why won’t this damn window go down?”
I continue to press the button, but nothing happens, except Dave’s loud and painful screams.
Me: “Dave, would you shut the fuck up, I can’t get the damn window down
Dave: “AHHHHHHH!!!! OWWWWWWWW”
Kelli: “Dave, what’s wrong?”
Dave: “OWWWWWWWW!!!!”
Me: “DAMNIT DAVE, SHUT THE FUCK UP! JT, WOULD YOU SHUT HIM THE HELL UP!!!”
Jt: “Uh Mike…..
Me: “WHAT? DUDE, I can’t get the window down, help me get this damn window down”
JT: “STOP PRESSING THE BUTTON!!”
Me: “BUT THE FUCKING WINDOW WON’T GO DOWN!!!”
Dave: “AHHHHHHHH!!!!! OWWWWWWWW!!! FUCK FUCK FUCK!!!!!
Jt: “DAVE’S HAND IS STUCK IN THE WINDOW!!!!”

In a Frank Drebin Naked Gun kinda moment, I had managed to get Dave’s
hand stuck in the window. Now, you might be wondering what his hand was
doing there in the first place. Believe me, I was wondering the same
damn thing. But, he said he was really hot and unrolled the window
about 1/4 of the way (Kelli gets really cold, so he didn’t want to
unroll it anymore) and wanted to get his body cold without getting
Kelli cold, so he hung his hand out of the window. As you might have
imagined, I had no idea what button I was pressing, since I was driving
and therefore watching the road and not the buttons. The funniest part
is that I continued to press the same button and not letting up, making
Dave’s pain that much worse. I felt so bad about it at the time, but
now as I tell the damn story, I can’t stop laughing. Luckily, his hand
was ok, no damage, but shit, that only makes it even more funny.

Oh, and no, I wasn’t drunk, just clueless. In fact, I didn’t have anything to drink.

Today was Dave’s favorite day of the year: the day we go to the Taste
of Chicago. Its also the only time we let him drive, and on that note,
his driving is not nearly as scary as it used to be, although I could
have done without him playing poker on his phone as he drove. In fact,
the rest of us (Kelli, Steve, and me) could have done with out that, so
much that we all insisted rather emphatically that he stop, especially
since he only sees out of one eye. Anywho, back to the story. They had
to drop their daughter off at his mom’s house and since she lives by
me, I had him pick me up for a change. When I spoke to him at 10:30 in
the AM, I told him I still needed to exercise, shower and go to the
bank. He asked me if I could skip one of those, because he claimed that
Steve would be at his house at 11:45 and that they would be at my house
by noon. Of course, I knew this would never happen, so I still did all
3 things, but I didn’t take as long as I normally would take in the
shower. They arrived about 12:30. Bastard. I swear, he is never on
fucking time, even if it is his favorite day of the year.

Even though traffic was fine, the ride there seemed to be endless, I
think it was because I was so damn hungry. I didn’t eat breakfast
because I knew I would be eating my ass off at the Taste. Of course, we
also had to stop at the gas station, so that delayed things even more.
Still, we wound up getting into the parking garage about 1:20. We got
out of the car and grabbed some pops and water from a cooler in the
trunk. As we walked away from the car, some guy told us that we had
left the driver’s side door open. I should clarify this. I left the
door open. I was sitting behind Dave and when I got out, for some
reason or another, I didn’t close the door. Sure, this sounds bad, but
Dave has a long history of doing shit along those lines to Jt and me.
Kinda like the time we were at a bar listening to our friend play (he
sang and tottled his gee-tar……….geez, that makes it sound like
country music, which it wasn’t) and Dave went out to Jt’s car to pass
out. 45 minutes later, we walk out and Dave was passed out in the car
with the door open. Anywho, I digress, back to the Taste.

We walked right up and waited in line to purchase tickets. I told the
girl behind the counter I wanted $28 worth and handed her $30. She
asked me if I had any singles so that she didn’t have to give as much
change back. This puzzled me deeply but I told her no. She then gave me
a $10 bill back and I told her it was too much change. Turns out, she
thought I was only buying $21 worth, but that still doesn’t explain the
$10 bill. Perhaps she was drunk.

Every year, the first thing we always get is pizza. Being that this
event took place over 8 hours ago, I have no recollection of what the
first thing we ate was. You should make this part of the story up for
yourself. Actually, when I think about it, reading all about the food I
ate is probably boring. So, I will skip it, just have you know that
most of the food rocked.

There is a water ride at the Taste which I have always wanted to go on.
We got up to it this year, stood next to it like we always do and let
it splash us. Ok, so Dave and I were the only 2 that did that. Still, I
really wanted to ride it and started a campaign to get at least one of
them to do it with me. It did cost 7 tickets, but shit, its a water
ride. The campaign turned out to be futile, although Dave wanted to do
it and would have done it if Kelli agreed.

Each year at the Taste, they have these high divers that put on a
cheesy little show and whatnot. Kelli really likes it so we always
watch. I couldn’t find it anymore boring, except that the guys have
just swimmer’s trunks on and have GREAT bodies.

After the diving show is when we ran into Scooty, Kris and her 4 kids.
Dave later said that it seemed as though Scooty couldn’t be anymore
annoyed to have seen us, and I too feel this is an accurate assessment
of the situation. I did ask them if any of them wanted to ride the
water ride and of course, the kids all said yes and Scooty and Kris
said no. I told them I would take the kids, but they wouldn’t let the
kids go. Fuckers. What’s a guy gotta do to ride a damn water ride?

One of the great and also annoying things about the Taste of Chicago is
that it brings out a diverse and wide range of people. People playing
buckets, people doing all sorts of things. Others promoting the
legalization of pot (yeah, when is that going to happen anyway?) Of
course, there was also the bible nuts who like to tell us we are going
to hell. One guy was passing out large million dollar bills, which once
you took them, had a whole bunch of  crazy Jesus shit on them. I
told him I didn’t want it and gave it back to him. He then told us
something along the lines of “Fine. At least I will be going to
Heaven.” Whatever dude. I really wanted to debate him, but there was
lots of food to be eaten. Later, we came across a couple of teens that
had a large sheet that read “Ask us why we are here.” I didn’t need to
ask why to know, but I did anyway. In fact, I walked right up and said
one word: “Why?”. The kid gave me some response, “blah blah blah
something great, we just want to get people’s views on life.” I don’t
know, I really wasn’t paying attention. So I asked him if he thought
that chocolate ice cream was great and he said “I sure do, but it isn’t
as great as God.” I quickly said “Who? Thanks guys, later” and walked
off.

We then ran into Scooty again. We talked with him for a few minutes and took a few pictures before moving on to the next thing.

That was pretty much it. I can’t remember anything else. What is it
about gorging myself on mass amount of food that makes me forgetful.