The Chicago Trip

Until a week ago I hadn’t been to Chicago in years and since my uncle lives there and my baby cousin was to have his first birthday that weekend I saw no reason not to. On top of that a friend in my frat (who is filthy stinking rich) rented a penthouse suite in the United Center to watch a Blackhawks game so it was obvious my weekend was made. So Saturday morning I hopped a train to Chicago and since I woke up at an inhumane hour I slept through most of it but something shocking happened on the train. When the train officer came to me asking for my ID and ticket I had no ID to give him other than my military ID so when he looked at my ID he looked back at me and said “thank you for your service”. I’m still not sure whether that was really a big deal or not but that hit me like a brick wall.

When I got to Chicago my grandparents picked me up at the train station and took me to my uncle’s house and as soon as I got there families started showing up with their toddlers for my cousin’s birthday party. It was like drowning in a sea of toddlers and I was the only person there above the age of 10 who had neither a wife nor a kid. But, from the perspective of someone who never gets to see their family, it was a huge moment for me. My other cousin, a two year-old girl named Brielle, was born while I was on the other side of the world and I didn’t even get to see her for the first time until they came to visit me in Germany and by that time she was walking and had already said a lot of her first words. That said, being able to see my new baby cousin during the crawling stage was big for me. For the rest of the night and into the next day I spent as much time as I could with my baby cousins up until my friends called and said they were at the United Center.

My uncle drove me to the United Center and the whole way over railed on me about how the Chicago Bears were destroying the Lions (I’m a Packers fan). When I got there I called my friends and they said to go to Gate 6. Since we were going to be in Penthouse Suites I expected something different than a normal ticket booth like all the other gates but when I got to Gate 6 it was identical to every other gate. But then I got another call from them and they said “sorry, we meant 6½”. So I walked around until I found 6½ and there was a guy standing outside in a suit and another guy with a metal detector. It felt like I was walking into an exclusive club like the ones I went to in Germany. When I got up to the suite it was basically a lounge with a observation deck and a roving food cart, from then on I knew it was going to be a beautiful night. The game was entertaining and ended with the Hawks winning 6-4 but I had the most fun just hanging out with the other guys. When the game ended the 15 or so of us carpooled back to ISU in cars and the whole way back we listened to stuff we remembered from the 90’s. When I finally got home I thought to myself, “that was a hell of a weekend”. It became an even more magical moment when I walked into my dorm and realized my friends had pranked me by stealing most of my things and putting them in their rooms and flipping everything they left behind upside-down.