Wednesday February 10, 2010

Wake up at 4:00 AM. Literally within seconds of my eyes opening, my condo starts to shake, not too violently, but enough to notice that something just happened. At first, I'm so delirious that I think that maybe Tool fell out of bed (his room is right next to mine). But I figure it couldn't have been that. Then I start to wonder if someone slid off the road and crashed into our building. I figure I'll just say fuck it and get ready for work, which I do, leaving around 4:45.

I get out to the parking lot and my car is literally frozen over. Thankfully the doors open, but everything else is frozen solid. Windows, wipers, etc. I crank the defrosters and give it a few minutes, listening to some Coheed and Cambria while I wait, as I'm going through a massive Coheed obsession lately. It's a band I have loved for probably about 6 or 7 years now, but like any other band, I go through phases where that's all I listen to for a few months. Before Coheed, it was Thrice. Finally, about four songs in, my windshield thaws enough for me to drive. Unfortunately, it's now about ten after five. I shoot a text to Nicole, who I'm opening with, and tell her I'm gonna be late. I gun it to work.

Once I get there, it's about 5:30. The guys who clean out our grease trap every month are there this morning in the back room cleaning the fucker. This, in turn, makes the entire back room smell like pure asshole. They wrap up pretty quick and we're able to finally breathe in the back room. The next few hours of the morning are painfully slow and anything but eventful, as no one is making an effort to come in this morning on account of the massive snow storm that everyone woke up to this morning.

At some point throughout the morning, a customer comes in and asks if we had felt the earthquake this morning. It then hits me that it was a fuckin' earthquake that shook the entire goddamn condo this morning and I feel like a triumphant tard for not having come even remotely close to guessing that rationale. I sulk in my own thoughts of stupidity for a few brief moments and then it's back to work, which consists of finishing the sudoku in this morning's paper.

Ryan comes into work at 9:30 and Nicole heads out. I now get to spend the next hour in a half with the only person I have ever met that makes me look like a goddamn genius when you compare our IQ's. I don't claim to be a "smart guy" by any means, but I do feel I have an exceptional amount of common sense, or "street smarts" as the cool people refer to it. The things I am knowledgeable on, I can pretty much write an entire encyclopedia full of information. The things I'm not so knowledgeable on, I literally know ZERO about. The difference between Ryan and myself is that when I don't know about something, I do not pretend I do for the sake of conversation. I just flat out tell the person that I do not know about what the fuck they are speaking of, and that's that. Ryan, however, has this obsession with trying to carry on a conversation that he knows nothing about, and it's usually painfully obvious, almost getting to the degree of being sad and hard to watch. So for the next hour and a half, there is very little discussed between the two of us.

Then it happens. The shitty news of the day. Ryan calls me in the back and explains to me that the store's hours of operation are changing due to lack of business. We are now closing at 8:00, as opposed to 9:00, on Monday-Thursday. Friday and Saturday we close at 9:00 instead of 10:00. Sunday we close at 7:00 instead of 8:00. We also open an hour later on Saturday and Sunday. Because of this big change, he says that everyone in the store will ultimately lose hours, as there are less hours to give out. Understandable, but it's still shitty news, as I'm barely getting by with my income as it is. Take away ten hours of work every week, and I'm pretty much the textbook definition of "fucked".

I leave work fairly pissed, cranking my radio as high as it will go without blowing out the speakers, and cruising home in a rage. Everyone pisses me off today, no matter who they are, I hate them with a passion. I get home and go straight to my brother's room to tell him the bad news and ask if there's any way I can start my smoothie training a little earlier than intended just for the sole purpose of being on the payroll. That would at least make up for the lost hours at Caribou for the next few months. He says he'll look into it and see what he can pull off. Meanwhile, I go into my room and throw on Chasing Amy, as I'm in need for a little Kevin Smith gem to pick my spirits up. About twenty minutes in, I fall asleep.

I wake up around 4:00 to a text from Hart saying that he and Litwicki are going to meet at my place around 5:00 to head to the Bulls game. I tell him it's all good and proceed to get out of bed so I can cook up a quick dinner before I leave. Dinner preparation winds up being an intense hour-long Mario 64 session. Don't ask how it lead to that, as I'm still unsure, myself. Hart shows up at 5:00 and says Litwicki and his brother, Chris, are on their way here now. I quickly heat up and wolf down a few bowls of the leftover Jon Bode chili from the Super Bowl, nab a few Tums just in case of my all-too-familiar acid reflux decides to present itself, grab a pop for the ride, and am out the door. We meet the brothers Litwicki outside and we all pile in Hart's car to head to the Windy City.

We get there just a little after 6:30, due to some heavy traffic we encounter on the way. We walk into the United Center and decide to walk around, seeing we have about forty-five minutes to kill before the game starts. We pretty much circle the entire establishment, above and below, and decide it's time to go find our seats. The seats were pretty fucking dope. Because Mike Litwicki is such a baller and drives a Lexus, he gets $100 seats at half price. Not only are our $50 seats in a good spot, we are also presented with our own personal waitress for the duration of the game. She comes over and does her little shtick and tells us to just flag her down if we need anything throughout the game.

After the first period, Orlando is just kicking the shit out of our beloved Bulls by about twenty points or so. We psyche ourselves up for the second period and order up some goodies. I get myself a big pretzel with cheese and a beer. The shit's kind of expensive, but it's expected at a place like this, so it's not really shocking in the least. The second period comes and goes, resulting in yet another brutal ass-whooping put on us by the Magic. We're still down about twenty points. We decide to go hit the bathroom and do a little more sight-seeing in the United Center while we wait for the second half to start.

We bomb around the place and Litwicki and myself decide to play the fun game called, "count how many chicks you would sleep with if you had the chance." This game pretty much lasts until we get back to our seats, resulting in a lot of laughs and memorable lines. Needless to say, it was a good time. We get back to our seats about halfway through the third period and continue to watch the Bulls get the shit kicked out of them on their home turf. It's a pretty pathetic game, but we make it to the end, resulting in me consuming more beers. By game's end, I'm feeling pretty toasty as we head back out to the car.

The drive home seems like a five minute drive after the bullshit we went through on the ride there. Hart drops me off at my place and it's just about 11:00. I cruise inside, throw on my comfy clothes, and proceed to kick some more ass in Mario 64 before I get too sleepy and decide to call it a night. I do the nightly routine and then pass out while watching The Saint.