Time to rant

I am disgusted with the Round Lake Beach, IL police department and the Popeye's in the same town. I left work an hour early to drive 1 hour and 15 minutes to meet Chris Benoit, probably the best technical wrestler alive today. I really wanted to meet him. The session started at 4:30 and I got there at 4:25, a little later than I was hoping. There were about 600-700, maybe more, people ahead of me.

As I'm standing in a line that is going into residential neighborhoods and conversing with the people, I hear something about we need a blue ticket to get an autograph. Now this was coming from a woman who had one eye open, one eye closed, and looking like she had just come from a taping of the Jerry Springer show. I'm not kidding. Turns out they handed out about 250 tickets and the only way Chris would sign was if you had one. Nobody told us about tickets, we found out while we were waiting as patiently as we could. Around 5:45, we figured it out.

We rushed the restaurant just trying to catch a glimpse of the Crippler. I saw the back of his head and his face from the side. Then the cops threatened us that we had to leave immediately if we didn't have a ticket. And they thanked us for our cooperation. Pardon me, but what a bunch of assholes. Maybe they had to end the session at 6 sharp because the restaurant was afraid they were losing business. I understand, but if they had cut the session short, that would have resulted in an absolute riot. And I wouldn't have been surprised if one broke out after I left.

And then the road I took to drive up there was closed on my way home, so I had to take an alternate route. I spent 2 and a half hours driving for basically standing for an hour in a bad neighborhood and ultimately seeing the back of Benoit's head. Yeah, what a thrill that was.

I blame the police first and the restaurant second. We were all very civil. The word we got was they just weren't ready for such a big crowd to converge on such a small community and restaurant. Come again. You weren't prepared? Well you should have been prepared. Chris Benoit is not Outback Jack, Doink the Clown, or Duke the Dumpster Droese, you know what I mean! Wrestling may not be the NFL, but it's still a big deal, ok?

If you've ever driven with me, you know I need the radio on or some kind of music going on. I drove 95 minutes and the stereo was never one for one split second. I don't think I have ever driven that long with no music on. That's how numb, upset, and disgusted I was. Hopefully, the weekend will get better.