Day 35

Thank goodness it is Sunday. That is the one and only time you will hear me say that. Why? Because yesterday is over. Yesterday was the infamous Notre Dame/Navy game that I described a few days back. Lets just call yesterday the longest day of my life. I woke up at 6am, on the couch of my client's basement in Indiana, got dressed, and headed to my bosses house. We got there around 7 and headed for South Bend. The bloody mary's and beers had already begun for the others. We arrived in the parking lot at 8:15am for a noon kickoff. The parking lot was already pretty packed with tailgaters. They set up shop and started pounding the drinks. I started drinking some bloody mary's - when in rome. As time went passed, it just was getting more and more uncomfortable. The drunker they all got, the louder they all got. I started to feel as if I was at a frat party. I've spent plenty of time drunk and around drunk people, but never like this and never at 9 am. Like I said before, I am not a morning drinker and not one to tailgate, but I also didn't feel the need to be ridiculed for being a "pussy" for not getting completely obliterated. Be that is it may, the long morning of tailgating was over and we went into the game.

The game was very cool. My boss has good seats and the game was high scoring. Notre Dame won 42-21. I'll say this, it was probably because it wasn't a big game, but that was the quietest 90,000 fans I've ever seen at a sporting event. So earlier in the day, I had found out that we were going to tailgate postgame as well, but I had a 8:15 dinner reservation in the city. I'm thinking this wouldn't be a problem for a noon game and ND is only 90 minutes from Chicago. Well all day long, I was being chided about never making my dinner reservation and how I should call my wife and cancel. So the game ended around 3:30 and we sat in the parking lot and tailgating some more. Well I knew someone had to drive this group home and I knew my boss wanted me to drive home, so I wasn't drinking. These guys were horses, pounding beer after beer. I was hoping against hope that I would be able to leave the parking lot no later than 6, which would probably get me to the restaurant by 8:30, a little late. Luckily for me the game ended early enough to where this happened. We packed up the car and headed out around 5:30. Me driving a drunken crew in a giant Ford Expedition with a trailer attached to the back. The next hour in the car was crazy. Two guys were passed out while the other three proceeded to pound 20 beers while listening to AC/DC full blast. I have to admit, at that point, I was bordeline amused. I knew there was finally light at the end of the tunnel because I was on my way home. I just was so out of place all day. It was an experience to say the least.

We arrived back at my bosses house at 7, which gave me the hour I needed to make it to the restaurant, sans a shower. Luckily, I had my clothes from Friday night's dinner, so would where that shirt. I stopped at a Boston Market in Indiana to stick my head in the sink and wash my hands and face. I got to Ron of Japan at 10 after 8, right on time and I was starving. The bad news was they were very far behind on reservations. Long story short, they are morons there and we didn't sit until 9:50! If it wasn't such a specialized meal (Japanese steakhouse) that we had been craving for weeks, than we would have been out of there. So we finished dinner around 11:25 and got home around 11:45. I passed out so hard last night it wasn't even funny. So came the end of the longest day ever!

Song of the Day: "Coming in From the Cold" by Bob Marley