Restlessness, Chicago, and Other Dangerous combinations
There is this culture among high school and college students that demands entertainment but refuses to be entertained. It’s a tough dissonance to resolve—many secondary and post-secondary kids out there will look for something to do on a weekend night, find that there is “nothing to do”, and end up drinking. The venue is of secondary concern, because the alcohol is really the answer to the boredom.
This is not another Beef rant against the vice of alcohol (already did one of those). It’s an observation, a conclusion I have arrived at after seven straight years of watching kids get free time, get bored, and then get drunk. More recently, however, a corollary fact has been revealed: drinking and carrying on is not the answer to boredom; rather, boredom is the crutch upon which we lean drinking and carrying on.
I’ll clarify. A common complaint, when I attended DePauw University in Greencastle Indiana, was that there was “nothing to do.” Now that is just a false claim, because there was all kinds of stuff to do. I personally partook in fraternity life, the football team, the school newspaper, the school radio station, Ultimate Frisbee Wednesdays, and one almost legendary week-long NCAA Football 2005 binge. That was in the space of one year; and frankly, by anyone’s standard, the Beefster was a shy loser while at DePauw.
At first this seemed to be a problem unique to living in Greencastle Indiana, until I came to realize that friends at Purdue University in West Lafayette were making the same claim. West Lafayette has everything that Greencastle has in triplicate, plus also bars, a movie theater, restaurants, and 18 times as many students. Still, the claim always arose that “there’s nothing to do here.”
So be it. This must be a by-product of the impression (the accurate impression) that West Lafayette is a small college town. But Columbus Ohio is no small college town; it’s the 15th largest city in the country. It’s the capital of one of the top 10 most populous states in the nation; home to several professional sports teams, mediocre presidents, and the largest university in the United States. Yet not more than ten minutes ago, these very words could be heard echoing through the halls of Drackett Tower: “There’s nothing to f---ing DO here!”
That preface is not to try to convince you that there actually are things to do in the town where your college of choice is located. The point is simply that we are a restless bunch, we 15-25ers. We want stuff to happen, to us, without any effort involved, and there had dang well better be members of the opposite sex there too. It is a mindset that I am convinced is wholly unshakeable, that not even the Beefster is immune to.
Which is why, during the last week of winter break, two days after Christmas, I piloted a full sized 1996 Ford van to Chicago. It was a road trip, abridged version, and it boiled down to me, Mangas, and my brother.
Right now, there are two groups of people reading this, and they will have two different reactions. The first group is the group that knows me, but not the other two parties involved. They are thinking “Oh, three guys going on a road trip. That would be pretty fun.” The second group is composed of the people that know Sam and Mangas as well as the Beefster. These people are saying “Thank you, Lord, for not making me ride in that car for two and a half hours.”
Sam served as navigator, a role that consisted of holding the Google map in one hand and the CD player in the other while making the same jokes with Mangas. Mangas served as elder statesmen, actually getting us where we wanted to go, and even finding a free kick-butt parking space in front of Teej’s apartment. I was the chauffeur.
Before this narrative goes much further, I should say that we weren’t just going to Chicago with no plan or vision; that’s just how it ended up. The plan was to visit Teej, which is what we call Tiffany Jaynes to her face, because if you call her Princess she gets really salty and let me tell you, that woman has some pipes of steel on her. I guarantee she can yell at you longer than you can yell at her. Saltiness aside, Teej has this kick-butt apartment (“flat”) there in Chicago, which she has all to herself, cleverly named “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”, which is available for use free of charge to anybody who doesn’t call her Princess to her face.
What we should have anticipated is that Teej would be far too busy to be able to squeeze us in on this particular day. Chicago residents lead busy lives. This left the three of us with an entire afternoon, not very much money, and a city to see.
If you know Sam and Mangas, you can probably guess that the first thing we did was begin to wander amiably in no particular direction whatsoever, with no goal other than to acquire food. By the time we stumbled onto a block of restaurants, Jimmy John’s seemed like the only logical choice.
The good news is, the Bentley dealership was just down the street. I am not one of those super-enthusiastic car fans, that knows all about the chassis and so forth, but this place is sincerely kick-butt. You can’t touch or breathe on anything but they’ll let you wander around for the low low price of enduring condescending looks from the well-dressed salespersons, for as long as you want.
As cool as it was, an hour of looking at cars that cost more than a house was enough in the Bentley dealership. We went up and down Michigan Avenue (the name belies this street’s quality), did the Apple Store (you talk about a hippy commune…), and found ourselves at the Sports Authority. This was not promising until we made our way up to the fifth floor where they have, I kid you not, foosball and darts and air hockey and billiard tables all set up for you to use, free of charge.
As we were walking out, somebody was getting interviewed by a local news station about the Bears’ upcoming appearance in the NFL playoffs. We thought this was pretty cool, until we walked outside and crossed the street.
Then it was like a movie, seriously. We hear this awful screeching sound, metal on asphalt, tires squealing, whip around, and not more than half a city block away an Explorer has flipped, landed, turned on its top, skidded into a light pole, and dislodged the glass lamp at the top, which fell on the underbelly of the car. Probably a hundred people were in the vicinity, some ran and started to help, and we pulled out the cell phone and called 911 as soon as we could.
It bears mentioning, as anti-climactic as it may be to the chronological telling of this story, that the only woman in the car (the driver) was not paralyzed, did not lose her speech, and by all accounts appeared to have no life-altering injuries (truly, a miracle). That fact established, I feel liberated to share the following information as well: the news came and interviewed us. I’m dead serious. First CBS just got the three of us in a shot, staring somberly at the crash. Then they called their anchor guy to come interview us. Then FOX saw CBS interviewing us, so their lady reporter came and interviewed us. I have to say, we did pretty well describing the entire crash, considering we only saw the last 1/8th of the action. We were big-time, man.
We rushed back to Teej’s apartment, trying desperately to figure out how to work the audio on her TV, realized we were in the wrong apartment (whoops), ran to her actual apartment, and got there just in time for the six o’clock news.
Five hours later, on the eleven o’clock news, they showed three seconds of Mangas saying how surprised we were. Still, we made the news, IN CHICAGO, on our first day. Pretty dagnabb good if you ask me.
Final Winter Break Edition: Tempe, Arizona.
Ols: That car crash was seriously like something out of the second matrix movie.
The rest of the thoughts 1.14.05