Nobody wants to wish hours away. We only get so many over the course of a life. But today is the kind of day where an overwhelming majority of Bears fans would pay $20 to hit a button right now and make it 5 minutes before kickoff – just enough time to grab a beer and a quick piss. Sadly, that button doesn’t exist. It is one of many buttons I’d like to invent, including a button to get your home from long trips abroad in 30 seconds.
Here are some ways for you to pass the time between now and then.
Play Golf
It’s still warm out everywhere so even if you don’t enjoy the game, go and play golf. Why?
It’ll kill at a minimum four hours on the course. And figure an hour getting there and ready, hour getting home and showered, and you’ve got a solid six-hour kill. What else is killing six hours?
(Trick for new golfers: don’t keep score. Just swing the club and hit the shots and enjoy yourself. If you hit 2 or 3 good ones, it’ll make the experience worth it.)
Work Super Hard (Anticipating Tomorrow Off)
You’re probably reading this early in the morning, at your desk.
Your work email is right there but you don’t want to click the icon because you know once you do, the day will be a 700-foot shit tsunami and you’re the only one with a boat.
But what if you commit, right now, to taking tomorrow off. Think about it. Either the Bears will win and you’ll be unable to sleep until 3 AM or the Bears will lose and…you’ll be unable to sleep until 3 AM. You’ll be in no condition to work tomorrow. So double time it today.
Don’t procrastinate on anything. Make a solid to do list and check em off at a pace previously unforeseen in your cubicle. Something can wait until Monday? Do it today. Something you can pass off to Asshole Jim in Accounts Payable, do it yourself. This way when you call in tomorrow, you can tell the boss that you were prepared for the day missed and got way ahead on everything. You can turn not showing up to work into a positive.
And by keeping the brain intensely focused on other things, you won’t be thinking about Bears/Packers until you’re pulling into your driveway.
Plan a Vacation
Pick a place you’ve always wanted to go: Poland, Ireland, northern California, Toledo.
Open up a browser.
Google: “Oldest bar in [Poland, Ireland, northern California, Toledo]”
Open the map associated with that bar and use the “Search Nearby” feature to find a hotel.
This is how I start planning every single trip I take. The oldest bar in a place tends to still be open for a reason and it also tends to be in a great spot.
This also opens a series of rabbit holes to discover a city, region, country…etc. You don’t have to have the time or money to take the trip in order to plan the trip. And you’ll find in planning the trip, you get more excited and motivated to do what is necessary to make the trip an actuality.
And holy shit, can you spend hours and hours and hours doing this.
Pro Tip: Open a document and save your notes. Links, names of hotels, sites…etc. You’ll get overwhelmed if you don’t have a database of information.
