Return to My Homeland

Over the summer, I chronicled my journey to my people's homeland of Ireland. And it was blimey and bloody fantastic. I also thought I'd be done with my blog after purging all my creative juices.

But alas, this past weekend I returned to my other people's homeland. Not Poland. Something far more majestic, but with the same amount of mismatching plaid and bad hair. That's right. This weekend I returned to South Bend, Indiana. I laughed, I cried, I vomited. And it was beautiful.

Our "family friend" and Penn State alum Jaime came in from Pennsylvania for the game. Friday we enjoyed the finest of Chicago weather. And I am not being facetious. It was close to 90 degrees so we hit the beach, did some shopping... and made some seagull friends along the way.

Friday night I introduced Jaime to my lover and we went to dinner then off to AMA's birthday party. I tried my hardest to get buzzed, but it just wasn't working. You know those kind of nights. So after 4 tame vodka lemonades, I gave up and we went home... to go to bed... or so that was the plan.

But the college kids below us were having a party. And it was loud with about 80 people in our sorry excuse for an inner courtyard and music blarring. At first, I was able to sleep... for about an hour. Then at 2, the music was still blarring. To the point that the glasses our shelves were vibrating and making noise. No joke. So Jaime and I got really fired up and at about 3:30 called 911 to complain. The dispatch was really nice, and I swear I am not a dork. But seriously... it ended up being loud music until 4 am... when we had to be up at 5 am for the tailgater for Pete's sake. At about 3:30 Jaime and I even took a stroll around the block to get my claritan out of my car. So for about an hour, Jaime and I sat prostrate in front of my window vigiliantly staking out the police. They came and the pieces of crap down below us turned the music down. But it was no use. I couldn't fall back to sleep.

At about 5:15 Kelly awoke from her Rip Van Winkle-like slumber. She's a heavy sleeper and one lucky bastard usually, but she was sick and had some EXTRA help from some medication. LUCKY! And we began the morning by drinking some diet coke because we had coffee but no creamer.... NOOOOOO! An hour later, we headed down Lill to Halsted, blarring the fight song and loving life. At Halsted we discovered some stupid diversity fair that was setting up. With a ciggie in hand in the wee hours Kelly exclaimed "I hate diversity!" and we all did at that moment because diversity was an adversity and we had to snake onto Lake Shore Drive via Diversey, which was a pain in the non p.c. arse.

On our way, we passed the beautiful Comiskey Park, which I refuse to refer to as US Cellular and never will. We made great time, chatting with the fam along the way who had already been up for hours with the anxiety of children on Christmas morning. For the love of tradition, we stopped at the Knute Rockne Memorial Rest stop and downed some Red Bull. We arrived into South Bend at about 9, ten eastern time... what's with South Bend selling out and going east coast? RIP. I poured some Red Bull out for the aborted fetuses memoralized in a plaque near a local Catholic high school and Kelly cut a Penn State van off. It was as God would've intended.

The tailgate was a masterpiece, a Mona Lisa, if you will but without the creepy woman smiling at her own escape of gas. There were two tents, thankfully, because the sun was HOOOOOT! TTT did it up right with some Fire and Ice... a contraption that includes both a cooler and a grill. HOT DOG! literally and burgers and Polish Sausage! As usual, I took alot of pictures and drank alot of beer. I forgot to play bags. SONOFA. IT was a loooong day, especially with only an hour of sleep in me. The game didn't start until 3:30 and I wasn't sure if I would make it to the Backer.

But we prevailed. Jaime, Kelly, and I headed to the Backer and scored some sweet seats. We remeinscienced about the cheapness of beer and the townie bartenders who used chip clips to clip their hair back. I befriended a black man who smoked a stogie who told me to keep my comments to myself... that is until I told him that "I say what I want, when I want." Then he said something like, "You all right. What are you drinkin?" Jaime also made some friends... some creepy Penn State fans who ended up stealing liquor from the bar. We're all so classy, aren't we?



Needless to say, the game was neato. At first we were scared, but I soon found myself doing a jig at halftime and telling people to go f themselves. It was also as God would've intended.

After the game, we returned to the tailgate to eat all the leftover food and talk about how awesome we are. (Jaime felt left out but glad she didn't spent 300 dollars on a ticket) We headed back to Kelly's car to start our journey home only to have to get a call from Douchore that said, "hey, can you give me a ride back to Chicago? and a place to stay? and a ride back to the airport?" as if we hadn't just spent the entire day together and couldn't have discussed this earlier. But he's family, so we returned only to sit in traffic for literarlly an hour before going to the gas station.

On the way to the gas station while stuck in traffic, some random townie knocked on Kelly's window and told her that her rear license plate was out and she could get a ticket in Indiana for it. "WOW... CARL! GOOD TO SEE YOU!" And he even had the gall later to make Kelly move up at the gas station after she started pumping gas so he could fit. Who IS this guy?

After a long, long drive home Kelly proceeded in trying to find a place to park... the diversity fair was still going on, and at this point in the night, we hated everyone... all people. Seconds later, I had kelly call my phone to find it in the bottom of the car someplace, rolling around... only to have someone in South Bend pick it up to inform me I left my cell phone there... at the Marathon Gas Station in South Bend. Are you kidding me?

I cried alot.