We were invited to Friday’s White Sox/Tigers game by friends, and were happy to go. But when it started raining hard around 2:30 on Friday afternoon, I began to wonder …
I knew my friend is a guy with a positive attitude, so I figured he’d want to go for it, but I called him anyway. Sure enough, he still wanted to go. We left Arlington heights at 4:30 and immediately got caught in traffic. We tried to get off the Interstate and take side roads, but that was, if anything, worse. It was raining the entire time.
As we got close to the park, we decided we were hungry. On his many past trips, Wayne has driven past Lawrence’s Fisheries. On a sudden whim, he decided that’s where we would eat. I was a little nervous that it was located on the bank of the sanitation canal. They had a selection of fried seafood. My friend went for shrimp. Our wives had scallops. I went for clams. None of the food is prepared in advance, so we had quite a long wait, but it was worth it — or it would have been if we hadn’t be forced to cram the food down on the short drive from the store to the park. As we ate and drove through the rain, we heard on the radio that the game was expected to begin on time. I was still skeptical.
Our parking place was at the furthest end of the furthest lot. It was still raining as we walked the half mile or so to the park.
When we got inside, it was 7:15, a few minutes past game time. The tarp was on the field. We found our seats, but they were out in the open and wet. We walked up about six rows to dry seats under the overhang. We found some empty chairs and sat down. Not more than three minutes later, there was an announcement — we regret to inform you that tonight’s game between the White Sox and the Tigers has been postponed.
Everybody, us included, sat there for another ten minutes or so, not wanting it to be over. We finally got up and made our long, wet way back to the car. We headed back to Arlington Heights. We got there at 9:30 — five hours of sitting in traffic, interrupted only by a quick stop for food and seven minutes in a ball park. We watched It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World. After the evening we’d had. It seemed appropriate.