To preface, I am not a fan of the city of Chicago. In this post you will come across many jokes about the beloved Chi-town. These jokes are rooted in honest feelings about the city, but are meant to be taken light-heartedly as well. They are both playful and serious, like the “E” light for a car. Truthful, but something you can find humerous. With that said, here is Day#2 of the Photo challenge.
This first picture was during the five minutes of no rain during our one year anniversary trip to Chicago, and man was it miserable. The fact that our anniversary weekend was spent in Blackhawk country was bad enough, but then finding out about the NFL draft taking place in Chicago that very same weekend made me loathe the state of Illinois for the 96 hours we were there. The NFL tourism alone was enough for me to crave a 2 Liter of Drano; now add in the consistent 30-40 degree weather and cold showers we experienced, and I am one unhappy camper without even camping. The only thing that could’ve made it worse is if i woke up to Kathy Bates standing over my bed with a sledgehammer… These circumstances in the land of the Toews took away the joy of leisurely walking and sight-seeing in the Windy City and replaced it with a wet and claustrophobic irritation, yet I held onto what optimism I had left and tried to make the best of a bad situation. I tried as hard as I possibly could with hopes higher than the Dave Chappelle, Snoop Dogg (not Lion), and Afroman watching a Cheech and Chong marathon in Denver at the top of the rocky mountains on April 20th. Despite my efforts, the windy city followed through with what it does best—it blew (pun intended).
On the bright side, we got to use AirBnB for the first time! We’d been forward to this great experience that so many people had talked up to us, but instead this was just another area of disappointment for us. The people we stayed with were great… or so we thought. We talked about beer, traveling, church, faith, and marriage, and were astounded by how well we connected with them! Unfortunately, what we thought was a memorable experience with new friends, turned out to be pretty one-sided. The day after we left their house we got a horrible review from them about stuff we apparently had damaged. Actually, the only thing we damaged was a picture frame. Everything else they accused us of damaging was not of our doing, nor did we know it was damaged to begin with. The funny thing about this is we offered to pay for the picture frame, and they “politely” declined our gesture to make things right in person. They saved their opinions about us as house guests for their macbook a week or so later; ironically, they didn’t give the Michigan exclusive food, drinks, or pipe tobacco we gave them as a thank you a bad review. On top of that, during our stay we went to three different pizza places to get a deep dish pizza. We were only able to get into one in less than two hours, and once we were seated, they didn’t even have deep dish. Needless to say, our one year anniversary getaway had more bad memories than good, and at about three days in we were at our breaking point. We were annoyed and short-tempered as a result of all of these issues. As you are probably already aware, the mixture of annoyance and short-temperedness with unfortunate circumstances is always a great mix for implosion both literally and figuratively, but I need not remind you that this isn’t a post about our weekend trip. This is a post about the fun I had with my wife on this trip despite the terrible circumstances. I just wanted to preface the important part with an overview of what we experienced, before I got to the night that was going to be legen… (Wait for it)…
It was our last night in Chi-town, and we wanted to just have fun. We didn’t care what it was we just wanted to do something memorable that would surpass the disgusting weekend we had thus far. So we went out to a bar that was way overpriced because we needed to get out of the house. Upon our arrival we were delightfully surprised by the DJ and his playlist. The only songs played where from the 90’s, and it was mainly hip hop, r&b, and pop. The nostalgic sounds of Christina Aguilera, Nelly, and Third Eye Blind set the stage for a good night. Shortly after that we met a man from Australia and he loved us for some reason. It sounds creepy as I type it out, but I can promise you he was not that way at all. He was delightful little dingo prancing about like he was down under without a care in the world. Now that I think about it, he probably had one too many Foster’s to drink (by one I mean a baker’s dozen). He tried talking to me as he cupped his hands around my ear and barked words I couldn’t understand, at which I smiled and nodded politely as if I did. After doing this for about 20 or so minutes, Alex and I’s anniversary came up in shouting match he called a conversation. The minute he heard this he let out a triumphant warrior yell, ran to the bar and immediately bought us each a beverage. Expressing gratitude to the man we took our time to enjoy his gift of a celebratory drink. He, however, slammed three shots of scotch in our stead (each costing $15), ran out on the dance floor and continued to awkwardly thrust like a wallaby in the outback. The night came to a close, and we went to cash out, but there was an issue. They couldn’t find Alex’s debit card. We waited for an hour for them to find it, and it turned into us not paying a single thing for the entire night we had. Our last night was one to remember, and made the entire weekend worth it despite its difficulties.
My point in all of this is to show that despite circumstances making our vacation horrifically equivalent to riding your motorcycle on the freeway and it starts hailing with hail the size of cantaloupes. and our own frustration and irritability making them worse, my wife and I still came together and had fun with each other, and a lot of it. We made the best of the last night we spent in Chicago, and even though I am not a fan of the blackhawks, or a giant bean designed specifically for people to take selfies with, she is still my favorite person to have fun with, and I never want to miss an opportunity to make a memory with her because of it. Whether it’s us binge watching Lost, eating ourselves into a taco/pizza coma, or going to some random bar in Chicago that plays 90’s hits, there’s no one I’d rather spend my time meeting intoxicated Australians with other than her.
Alex, your smile is captivating, and your laugh is contagious. I promise to spend the rest of my life making you smile and laugh as much as humanely possible. I know I have a lot of cat videos, makeup tutorials, nachos bell grande’s, seasons of Shield, and facebook posts from Bon Qui Qui to compete with, but I’m up for the competition because I will never get sick of that laugh.
…DARY!!!
Finding Rest in the Haven 