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Sunrise on a Wing Previous | Home | Next |
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 Sunrise from my window. Somewhere between Pensacola and Memphis. More from the Chicago trip. When we last left our heroes, they had just had a rockin' good time at Buddy Guy's Legends. But there were other ideas in the works prior to the blues club excursion. The first one was a Wicked plan. We both wanted to see the musical Wicked, but neither of us wanted to shell out face value for tickets much less the elevated price charged by 'ticket agents'. (makes scalping sound legit doesn't it) Eddie found out that 2 hours before the performance, there's a drawing at the Border's bookstore near the theater for tickets. 10 names drawn. If chosen, you get two tickets close to the stage for only $25 apiece. Not bad. So we put our names in the hat. No. Literally. A big witch's hat. Then we came back at the appointed time and waited for the drawing. It wasn't an original idea. There were a lot of other people there. But we figured with both of our names in and 10 drawings, we at least had a chance. We even talked about what to do if we both were chosen. We, as really nice guys, would simply decline the second pair and let someone else have the pleasure of winning. Not everyone was so thoughtful. The drawing began and we waited. A few names were chosen and they weren't us. Then a name was chosen and the guy calling the names paused trying to read the name. How hard is it to read 'Brian' or 'Eddie'. Come on. Say it. Then he started to spell the last name T-A-O-S-A or something like that. A lady screamed and her gentleman friend walked to the front to claim the tickets. They appeared to be tourists from out of the country. Korean maybe. There was a little language barrier between the people giving them the tickets and the winning family. But they were very excited and at that point we were happy for them. That was about to change. Another name drawn. Another not us. Then the name caller picked a name and laughed a little. It was another member of the same family. The lady screamed again and went to pick up her tickets. It looked like there were four in the group so now they would all get to go. Once again, we were happy for them because we knew our tickets had to be next. Right? Down to two draws left. Guess what family name came out of the big witch's hat of sorrow. That's right. A third member to the SAME FAMILY! The name caller even asked if they really needed the tickets or if he should draw again. THEY TOOK THEM! Now maybe they had some other people back at the hotel or something but come on. 3 out of 10 to the same family. Was there a fix? This is Chicago you know. Famous for political tomfoolery. Maybe they were related to Kim Jong-Il and there's a connection to a Chicago crime family. Theatre tickets for nuclear secrets. What had we stumbled on? How deep does this thing go? The last name was drawn and alas, it was not to be. We shifted into sour grapes mode. 'It's a stupid play anyway. It's not even on Broadway. I really didn't even want to see it. Stupid international Asian/Chicago crime syndicate.** Keep your stupid tickets to the stupid play.' But now what were we going to do? So many choices on a Saturday night in the Second City. So next we tried...wait...what's that? Oh. Well it looks like we've run out of time for this episode of Panhandlin' so I'll get to Obama and U2 next time. I'll even throw in a couple of hard boiled Chicago cops who are set to take on the world. And I haven't even touched on reason number one for the trip. Stay tuned. Oh, one last thing. While we were rockin' out at Legends to the sweet sounds of The Kinsey Report, we looked at each other and said, 'Stupid play'. This time, we kinda' meant it. (**I apologize to any Koreans, mob bosses or wiccans offended by this tomfoolery:-) Posted by blbutler on March 31st, 2008 Archived under: Sunrise / Sunset, Color, Travel, Wordplay |
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