CB’s House of Porn and Pancakes

Yes I seem to use this headline whenever it’s Cards/Cubs time, I use it because well it seems fitting. This time I went to Chicago for a bachelor party and to take in the Cards/Cubs game from roof top seating, first time for that…..

So my trip started out in troubled waters with barely 2 days before my trip, my driver’s license was in fact expired. Son of a……… I figured it might be tough to get on a plane with that, so I call up my parents and tell them I’m going to drop by that night and pick up my birth certificate and social security card because they told me they would hold on it for “safe keeping”, long story short, that stuff is lost……….. So admitting defeat I head home to figure out what I’m going to do, I surf the web to find what is required to renew the id, find they will accept an expired passport, I turn my place upside down, find my expired passport and use that to renew my driver’s license, game on for the trip!

I fly into Chicago late, I get in around 7:30pm, everyone else got in around 1 or 2. So I had told the group I would catch up as they would be at dinner already. A slurring AJ calls me and tells me to get into a cab and come to dinner because they haven’t been seated and worse case scenerio I can call in my order………. So he gives me the address and hangs up, on the way to find a cab, I text him and ask if I have the right address, no response, well I’ll just go with what I think he said. Cab it to a place called Moonshine, pull up, pay the cabbie and start to walk towards the door, see a girl look at me and smile, I smile, nod and keep walking for the door, she is watching me walk by, she’s still smiling and then waves, I do a courteous wave and look at the door, then it dawns on me, that’s Sara! That’s Tex’s ex I hadn’t seen in years, I walk back over tell her I’m a dumbass and catch up with her briefly. She tells me her and her friend are waiting for a table, I tell her I was meeting up with a bachelor party. I go inside to meet the boys, they are a trainwreck, been drinking since roughly noon, it’s now 8ish at night………. So I start to catch up. I see Sara and her friend come inside and wait by the hostess stand. I walk over and tell them to join us while they wait. So more drinks, they finally get a table, we on the other hand never did, we took over a couple of boothes, befriended the girls next to us, ordered enough food to keep us going and of course, kept drinking……… We finally settle our bill and head out. I stop by Sara’s table, tell her and her friend we are going to be at Murphy’s Bleachers tomorrow before the game, drop by if you want. Her friend says she has a first date tomorrow, I said “What’a better way to say I’m comfortable with you than to show up completely blitzed? Or better yet bring him around us, we’ll be good, we swear!” Somehow she didn’t buy that…….. So we leave Moonshine, pile in a bunch of cabs and head to Rockit. I have to say Rockit is a very cool place. We were upstairs, very swanky and the girls working there wore revealing clothes. The DJ played rock ballads from the 70’s up to modern rock. Grandpa Zick met up with us. It was good catching up with him. Me and him were sitting at a table, everyone else was running around all over the place, 2 girls asked if they could sit at our table, uh sure……. So they are chatting to each other and it seemed every other word they were using was “Sig Ep this, Sig Ep that.” So me and Zick interject that we are Sig Eps, end up talking to them for awhile, after awhile they wander off, random, but what the hell, I’m on vacation and I can’t feel my feet……. I head to the bathroom, so random guy decides to shove me, I don’t know why, but he does, I shrug it off and go to pee because well that shove almost made me pee…… Last call and we decide to call it a night, we have a long day of drinking the next day, including unlimited booze at the game, must rest up…….. We all pile in cabs, the first cab leaves, our cab starts to, these two really hot girls ask if we know where Rock Bottom Brewery is, they take one look at us and said “Looks like you guys have found it” No love for us I guess……… We roll up at the hotel, we see the Seahawk waiting for us in the lobby, as he was in the second cab. He said “Who wants to go to White Castles?” I said where is it? He said we passed it on the way here, it’s somewhere over there. We all pass. He has a hand written number of an Italian Resturant, it was something like Italian Feista. I kept saying “Call it and order a mexican hat dance, I don’t know what that means.” Seahawk kept trying to dial numbers on the phone in our room, no real success, he was trying to call the Italian place, but almost inadvertantly set up a wake up call…… So four drunk guys in a room is pretty much college all over. Someone lets out a loud fart and follows that up with “Opps, need to change my drawers.” That’s right ladies, we are all single, start the line to the left…….. Next day brought all of us cursing because our heads were pounding and it was to bright in the room, the curtains were still closed……… So we all take our individual showers, in an ADA shower, which is fine, but there’s nothing to stop the water from running out into the middle of the floor, thankfully they have a drain in the middle of floor…… We decide to take the train to the game, riding the train, we are re-hashing our favorite Mike Shannon and Harry Carey stories over the years. The train was super slow and delayed due to work on the tracks, we finally get to Wrigley, right off the train to help cure our hangovers we go to a Burrito place, for under $5, I get 2 tacos and a coke, sweet! It hits the spot and allows us to go to Murphy’s Bleachers to pre-game. We power through several beers, That Guy shows up with some of his friends, and Sara drops by with some of her friends. Our group heads out to the rooftop because what the hell, we have free booze and food waiting for us….. On my way out, I see what has to be the most ballsy t-shirt worn by a Cardinal Fan, it says “Keep Santo Out” with the STL logo underneath. So we head to the rooftop, partake in lots of beer, food and a crappy outting by the Cardinals. I go to the bathroom, waiting in line, the guy ahead of me, not sure what the hell he is doing in there. A girl walks up behind me going on how bad she has to go, finally the dude walks out of the bathroom chatting on the cell phone, WTF? The bathroom is the last place I’d use a cell phone…. I go in, answer nature’s call and walk out, the girl next in line said “Wow, you are fast!” I replied “Normally I’d be offended if a girl said that to me, but in this case I’ll take it as a compliment……” Reyes got violated like a drunken sorority girl, game over, head to Cubby Bear. About 50% of Cubby Bear is Cardinal Fans, so we have strength in numbers. Some Cub fans get mouthy, but what the hell, it’s their World Series, I’ll let them enjoy it. At Cubby Bear I switch to Old Style, because well any trip to Wrigley is not complete without Old Style….. The bachelor stumbles by with 3 beer cans in his hands, 2 were full of beer, the 3rd was his dipping can, God I hope he didn’t confuse the cans…….. At one point, I was wondering where most of the guys were, when 3 of them ran by chanting “Cougars!” Oh boy…… Another point the night was spiraling out of control, the beer tub girl was out of Old Style, but had Old Style Light, WTF?? After Cubby Bear we bar hop a few other places, we went to Casey Morgan’s, so dude walks by and says “You from St Louis?” I say “Yes” He says “I hate your fucking team, your town is a dump, I hate it” I just ignored him. He says “I’m a Sox fan anyway.” I say “Oh you are from Boston?” He said “No, White Sox.” I said “Like it matters either way.” Others taunted us, but when you remind them they are still in the lower half of the standings, that they haven’t done anything in 99 yrs and how we’ve won a World Series in our new stadium and they haven’t, they tend to get a little surly. We bounce from Casey Morgan’s and head down the street to Moe’s. We waited in line at Moe’s, was told “No Jerseys are allowed!” We were a bit confused because this bar was in the middle of Wrigleyville…….. So we go next door to Merkel’s, it was suppose to be a regroup and figure out to go bar, but turned into just staying there almost the rest of the night. The waitress was wearing a Cardinals hat on backwards, I ask her if she’s a Cards fan, she says yes and grew up in Alton, IL. Small world. Sitting on my stool, a bunch of girls wander in, the one starts to pull out a Blue Moon bottle from her purse, so I say “I’m telling!” End up talking to her for a bit, apparently she’s a traveling mini bar where she goes, awesome……. Around 1am I decide to call it a night as I can’t really focus anymore and I have a flight at 8am…… So I leave and jump into a cab. The cabbie is about to pull away when 3 drunken girls run up and say “Can we share your cab?” uh sure…… They dive in and the one girl says “I don’t have any cash, I have cash at my house!” The other girl slurs “I have $5, this is all this asshole needs” The other girl keeps trying to jump out of the cab at every stop sign because none of them have cash. So the other girls yell at the girl to get back in the cab. All I can do is laugh because well I can’t fell my legs right now. They finally get out of the cab because I won’t pay for their cab ride. I go to the hotel, get in the elevator, a bunch of Cub fans get into the elevator with me. The drunk girl says “Cardinals suck” I turn to her and say “We do, we lost to you guys today.” The guy way bigger than me, I guess her boyfriend/husband that looks like he eats his young says “What the FUCK are you doing here?” I say “My Cardinals are playing, so I’m here” They go on about St Louis sucks, etc. So I reply with “So in almost a 100 yrs what has your team done? Big payroll? how’s that working out for you? That’s what I thought!” I get to my floor and leave as they are babbling something incoherently and trying to figure out what room they are in. I go to the room, pass out and wake up and head to the airport still in a daze and wishing I could just curl up and die…… all in all good times!

It’s no April Fool’s Day joke, it’s the kick off of Baseball! The only fools were those of us that went to the yard early to tailgate in 30 mph wind gusts and cool tempatures. AJ staked out a spot for us to come down and join over the course of the day……. Here’s the hour by hour:

10am - Wake up with a feeling of excitement, it’s either gas or it’s because it’s Opening Day. Further examination determines it’s in fact Opening Day…….

1pm - Hop on the Metro Link, and head to the ballpark. Talk to AJ, he tells me what lot he is in and how much booze and brats he has. Since it’s during the Lenten Season, I am not drinking, soda and brats for me…….

1:30pm - Meet up with AJ, it’s windy as hell, can’t really set up the tailgating tent, flag pole, or what not

1:45pm - Folding chairs blow over

2pm - Try playing washers, I was throwing with the wind so it was pretty easy, AJ was throwing into the wind, made it a lot tougher, made it definately tricky

2:30pm - Gave up on washers, the rest of the boys start to arrive. Sleazy Rider texts me asking “What should I bring?” My reply, “A kite”

2:32pm - Folding chairs blow over

2:35pm - have to chase my folding chair, it got caught in the wind and scooted across the parking lot, son of a……. I didn’t realize I’d get a work out today

3pm- Rest of the group show up, most are 8 sheets to the wind as they were pre-partying early this a.m.

3:15pm - Folding chairs blow over again

3:30pm - Kirk Copeland from Z107 FM walks over with a wireless mic and says “Who wants to yell on the radio?” He gets an enthusastic cheers from the drunken revelers in our group, I could join in, I was on my fourth soda that day………

4pm - Meet my brothers and dad, get a free pass to Penthouse Club care of the um “Entertainers” handing out passes outside the ballpark, I love America

4:15pm - Enter stadium, spend $30 on a souvenoir sized soda and food (not literally, though it really felt like it)

6pm - Pre game festivities begin, World Series Champs celebration underway. World Series Banner raised, World Champs banners unveiled. They review the past 2 WS Championships and introduced players from the years, Stan the Man is introduced, fans young and old all rise to their feets and give him a standing ovation. It says something when someone retires over 40 yrs ago and is still revered as a god……. Ceremonies end with a fly over of 4 jets, they thunder overhead, Play Ball!

Cardinals lost the game, but at least the season has started!