Six Day Weekend

Well, the end of the kids six day weekend is approaching. They spent a couple days with family so that was good for them. We have now reached Monday morning’s events. The kids woke up around 8:00 AM that is sleeping in for them. The boy comes down stairs and starts playing the Wii. I am on a conference call so I don’t mind too much. The princess wakes up and strolls down stairs to join the boy in playing the Wii. Still everything was going along nicely. They then proceeded to eat breakfast, still no issues. I mention to the boy that the Steelers won and they would be playing the Cardinals in the Super Bowl. Jokingly mind you, with mild hysterics in my voice, Madison laughed as well. I suggested that we get four tickets to the game, again while laughing at the cost of the tickets. The tickets range from $2500 to $15K per ticket. So then I call Lisa and make the same comments to her, she almost had a stroke and told me to go away. Here is where the fun begins. The boy started to get mad. He stated that “You got my hopes up about going to the game and now I can’t go”, to which the princess replied he was joking about going to the game. This is where he comes unglued. I calmly send him to his room; which is ceremoniously followed by the stomping of the feet up the stairs and then the fifteen minutes of cry and complain mode. You all know the mode I am referring to here, it sounds like: You never let me do any thing. Slightly amusing the first couple of times you hear it, but it can get old. I can say this is a vast improvement over the initial tantrums when the kids moved here in August, talk about a powder keg. Any way, he finishes that off and proceeds back downstairs and calmly with a serious expression on his face says “I figured it out.” To which my only reply was “Figured what out?” He states that “You [Lisa and I] do not want me to have any fun and that is why you won’t take me to the Super Bowl.” Followed by the “Mom and Dad Patrick will take me.” I calmly hand him the phone and let him know that I a perfectly okay with them purchasing the tickets and that I believe he will enjoy the game. Ten minutes later the phone call was over and it was determined that he was not going to be attending this year’s game. What a great start to the week.

This weekend the boy’s basketball team finally pulled of a victory, 14 to 12. Tar heels over the fighting Illini (all the teams are named after college teams). Yes, it brought tears to my eyes. A little because the team won their first game, but the memories that came flooding back from the NCCA National Title game from a few years ago. Of course the city was ready to explode; Illinois was the top ranked team in the country with no losses going into the game. Lisa and I adventured downtown to a bar called the “Orange Crush,” I could not even make that name up if I tried. The bar was filled with Illini fanatics. All of Lisa and her friends went to U of I. So naturally I am the only person in the bar who is cheering for UNC. The one common thread between all Chicago fans of any sport is simple; not one of them understands how the sport they are cheering for is actually played. This night was no different.

Now having blind faith in your team is not a bad thing that is part of being a fan. The issue here is the level that Chicago fans take it. Bears fans are insane. Let me run you through a typical Bears fan and their emotions through the season: Preseason – “Man, Rex is looking great, he is going to take us all the way”; End of Preseason – “We will win it all”; Game 1 – “Why the hell is Smith leaving Grossman in the damn game, he can’t throw, hell he can barely take the snap from center”; Game 2 – “Grossman sucks, put in Kyle Orton.“; Games 3 – 10 – “As long as we beat the Packers we had a successful season”; Games 11 – 16 – “we better draft or trade for a good quarterback”; Playoffs – “We had the 85 Bears and there was no team better than them.” This last one is not even up for debate. Bears fans will not even acknowledge that any other teams exist. Sure you can start off a conversation about the Steelers teams of the 70s or the 49ers of the 80s maybe the Cowboys of the 90s, possibly the Patriots of the 2000s. However the conversation always ends a few seconds later with “the 85 Bears were better than all of them”. Except for the fact that the very same Bears team came back the next season only to fall short of the Super Bowl, where as all of the other previously mentioned teams won back to back Super Bowls, hell a couple of those teams won 3 out of 4 Super Bowls. I really could go on about this all day but I digress. Back to the “Orange Crush” and a room full of basketball fans that don’t know the first thing about basketball. I was being as quiet as possible and trying not to smile as the game went along. The “juicy” orange made a valiant attempt at a comeback in the second half, but fell short. One could have heard a pin drop in this bar. It is hard to explain, I have been there. I have watched my team fall short on the last second or even get blown out. I would just finish my beer and head home; tomorrow is another day. This was not the case with many of these people. I actually started to feel bad for them. The dejection was complete. I believe that some of these people have not recovered to this day.

I have told you this entire story to get to across one simple point in life: It’s just a game. This could be possibly one of the hardest lessons to learn and defiantly the hardest to teach a young child. There are more important things in life to fret about: family, friends, and even people you do not know that are risking their lives for us every day. Try and put everything in perspective.
I think I may have come up with a post for later this week, Life Lessons. Tomorrow’s post should be obvious, with the historic inauguration.

Until Tomorrow.