June 18, 2007

• So today we decided to take the girls to Chicago. We got a late start and didn’t even leave until 11. The good thing about leaving at that time is that traffic is pretty much non existent. We zipped down I55 and into downtown in about  half hour. We parked the car at the Millennium Street Parking Garage, which turned out to be a pretty good deal, at least by Chicago standards. It was only $19 for what amounted to almost 10 hours of parking. We started off with Millennium Park and I’m not exaggerating about this in the least, by the time we got out of the parking garage and walked only for not even 5 minutes, my sister was asking if we could stop to rest. See, she is in horrible shape and it was about 90 degrees out. She looked awful and honestly, at that point, I was convinced that she was going to have a heart attack at some point today. I was regretting that she came with us because we had a lot of walking to do and I thought there was no way she would make it. She kept saying we were walking too fast, but honestly, I had slowed down to half of my normal pace and she was still lagging far behind. As for our nieces and John, they were doing perfectly fine, running and jumping around.

  The first place we went was to “the bean” or as its official name is, Cloudgate. The girls loved it, they thought it was the coolest thing because, well, it is the coolest thing. After that we headed to the water area where tons of kids played in the water. This is really kind of hard to explain, there is a surface of about 2 inches of water and also a couple of walls with water coming down them and shooting out. We (and by we I mean John and I and our nieces) played around in the water for about a half hour. Even though we brought our gender specific swimwear, we did not put it on, which sounds stupid, except that it was so hot and humid out that we were dry again within a matter of minutes. After we got done there we decided to head over to Navy Pier.

  I told them to take the trolley while I dropped some stuff back at the car. I was to meet them at the Navy Pier Ferris Wheel at about 2:15. This was about 1:40 when I left them. The walk there was not too bad, except the walk to the car was a bit of a pain in the ass because I got lost on the way. Still, from the parking lot to Navy Pier it wound up being about a 20 minute walk. Not as bad as I thought it would be, but then again, I was walking really fast. I’m quite certain John, Willow, Rachel and I could have made it, but my sister…………….well that is a whole different story. I would be there waiting for them for about 45 minutes before they finally showed up.

  We walked around trying to find something we all wanted to do. I had the idea of the Fun House and even went as far as to buy tickets. But as it turned out, the girls were both afraid of dark places and loud noises, so we wound up not going in and getting our money back. Rachel really wanted to go on the Ferris Wheel, so we went back outside to head over there. Now both John and I are afraid of heights, but it was determined that I would take on the Wheel. At this point, it was getting cloudy and very windy. It was probably about a 20 mile per hour wind. This made for a very scary ride, if you can believe that. In fact, although Rachel was loving the ride, I was downright petrified, I was squeezing onto the poles of our little car as tight as I could, not that it would have made a damn bit of a difference had the damn think broken or blown down. The ride is probably less than 5 minutes, but it was a LOOOOOONG 5 minutes. LONG.

  After that, we headed over to the Sears Tower via a very eventful trolley ride. It had been raining when we finally got on the trolley. We were at the back of the trolley, with Willow sitting on a bench with an older lady and with some other people. John, Rachel and I were standing, with John’s backpack on the floor at his feet. Roseann was somewhere a few rows up. Willow was talking this older lady’s ear off, telling her all sorts of things, it was funny as hell. Yap, yap, yap, she would not shut up, everybody thought it was hilarious. Soon though, I started talking to this younger, kinda cute guy. Early on in the conversation, it was obvious that he was drunk. But, he and I were just going back and forth exchanging goofy stories and making the whole back of the trolley laugh. He told me that he was a lifeguard who had recently saved his first life. I told him that I had saved a life by stopping a lady from eating Arby’s. We went on with one goofy story after another before he got quiet for a minute. Now I was wearing sandals and somebody told me that I should watch my feet and “be careful where you step.” I looked down and didn’t know what to make of what I saw. I wanted to believe that the stream of liquid that was flowing down towards the back of the trolley was just rain water. I was piecing together what John and a few people had hinted toward but I just could not believe it was true, until later it was confirmed. As it turned out, the dude I had been talking to fucking pissed himself! It went down his shorts and leg and towards the back of the trolley. We arrived at our stop at Union Station and everybody got off. The dude went off with his friends and several people on the trolley were saying what happened, although I was still in a state of disbelief. That was, until John lifted up his bag. That’s right people, the bottom of his bag was soaked with the urine of a drunk lifeguard! Sorry dude, perhaps that’s how one rolls while in the water, but not while standing on a trolley in downtown Chicago. Unfortunately, as you might expect, we had to throw the backpack away along with just about everything inside, including Willow’s disposable camera I had bought her.

  We went to the Sears Tower before heading to Giordano’s for dinner. After dinner, I hitched a cab and went back to get the car. Long story short, after getting the car, I slowly made my way back to the Giordano’s to gather everybody else up and go home.

  That dude pissed himself. Its almost as amazing as that dog that eats his own shit. Almost.

  • 11:38 pm
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