A friend at church who has "connections" was kind enough to make available to us tickets for last night's Bears game at Soldier Field. Dillon, my brother Elic and I braved the cold and had a blast. And the Bears won! We loved it!!!
And now for the full disclosure statement:
With five minutes left in the fourth quarter, with the Bears leading 21-17, we left the stadium. We had parked at a garage that used a bus shuttle to go back and forth. Looking at the thousands of people there, and looking at my seven year old who was excited about the game but also "ready to go home", Elic and I decided to make our way to the bus. The thought of waiting among the thousands trying to all get out of Soldier Field at the same time at 10:30pm was too much to bear (down), and well, we are getting older after all. It was very easy to rationalize. We had just seen the Bears pull off a great defensive stand - holding the Saints, and stopping them on fourth down, and so we had the ball with five minutes left. With the lead. We figured - if we held on to win, awesome, and we didn't need to see it. If the Bears blew the lead, not awesome, and boy would we be mad if we stayed to watch that.
So we left. It was smooth sailing getting to the parking garage, though on the bus we found out through all the cellphone status updates of the game that the Bears had in fact given up the lead, and were now down 24-21. We thought, well, we made our case. Glad we didn't see that. We were in an underground garage and couldn't get radio until we moved up onto the street, and just as we did, the radio announcer says "And the kick, and it's good - the Bears have tied the game and we're going to overtime!"
Now - At this point, we are cruising down Congress and feeling good. I genuinely didn't regret leaving when we did. Sure, it would have been awesome to be there as the Bears marched down the field in the overtime and won the game, but really - being de-thawed and minutes away from our house when that happened also felt really good. I know to some it might make me a traitor of some sorts, but I am secure in my decision. Dillon's nap in the car on the way home also confirmed that decision - sure - we would have been yelling like crazy, but Dillon - he would have just been crazy.
I wish I could see him in school today - he'll probably be the most docile he's ever been.