It was a wild day. Start to finish. Here’s what I went through.
SUNDAY – DECEMBER 16, 2018
4:15 AM. My uncle’s birthday party started at 10 AM Saturday, in an Asbury Park bar, so I was fast asleep by 9:30 PM. At 4:15 I was wide awake and hungover and then came to the realization that (a) it was Sunday and (b) the Bears would be playing the Packers for a division title in 11 hours. So now I was awake, hungover and tense.
5:15 AM. Reverend Dave was flying into JFK from Paris so I checked the tracker. He was on time. There’s a good and bad side of this. Good side is…he’s on time. Bad side is I have to see Dave now.
9:29 AM. I had to drive from Sea Girt, New Jersey to Queens. I drive my dead grandfather’s 2004 Chevy Cavalier. It has 197,000 miles on it. And it doesn’t handle particularly well in conditions. Not only did I make this drive in a downpour but the fog was so thick I couldn’t see ten yards in front of the car.
10 and 2. Whole way. Tense as hell. Packer tense. Driving tense. Lots of tense.
11:35 AM. The normally hour and half ride is now done, clocking in at over 2. Instead of going into my apartment to pet my cats I went into my local, took a dump, slammed a quick Miller Lite and ordered an Uber to Josie Woods.
Sometime Around Noon. I popped into the pizza joint next to Josies for a quick slice. Cab pulls up in front. I see Dave in the back. He’s got two of the largest suitcases I’ve ever seen. I can barely hold the slice because I’m still tense from the drive and worrying my senior citizen mobile would veer the fuck off the Verrazano Bridge.
I said hello to Dave.
12:35 PM. There were already more Bears fans at Josie Woods than the previous five weeks combined. New faces too. Amazing what happens when you win more than you lose.
12:56 PM. A long debate occurred as we tried to find what the city equivalent of Reverend Dave is. Our best comp: Trenton. Except Trenton has a good slogan. (“What Trenton Makes, the World Takes”) Noah suggested the shitty tourist trap town at the base of Machu Picchu. Probably he’s the bad parts of Warsaw.
