Arrrgh!

As fate would have it, I happen to be a Chicago Bears season ticket holder.

Albeit one who isn’t going to the festivities in Miami this weekend.

Everyone says that the weather isn’t very good in the sunshine state right now but I’m betting dollars to donuts that it’s better than waking up in 2 degree conditions.

Nonetheless I found myself in a peculiar situation two weeks ago on the eve of the NFC championship game.

I had tickets to a game I didn’t want to attend.

For the most part, I’m a robust type of woman I’m not a fainting flower or nervous Nellie. But like most people I do have an Achilles heel:

My horrific sinuses.

I went to Bears’ games last season, would nap after the game and wake up with my eyes swollen shut.

I looked like someone punched me in the face without the bruising.

I already knew for this year what lay ahead and didn’t want to do that dance again.

I proactively sold or gave away my cold weather tickets. And before you ask, yes that meant the Packer game.

So imagine my surprise that on the eve of the NFC championship game that I still had a pair of seats burning a hole in my hands for one of the hottest games in town.

Now I happen to be a season ticket holder with a healthy dose of suspicion. I won’t just sell my tickets to anyone. If for some reason those tickets were re-sold, then scalped and the person doing so was caught; the shit would roll down hill directly to my doorstep.

As the season ticket holder of record, any wrong doing---any at all---is my responsibility. I’m the one the McCaskey’s will have the come to Jesus meeting with.

That also means that if you sit in my seats and act like a brain dead asshole and get the heave ho from security, my phone will be ringing on Monday morning as well.

So as the game approached I was in a bit of a quandary. What to do with this valuable commodity?

While running around like a mad woman one day, I heard that people were trying to barter goods and services in exchange for tickets to the game.

I took a look on Craigslist to see what I could find.

Mortgage brokering services and Botox didn’t appeal to me. I didn’t need a friend to buy me beer---I have enough enablers, thank you---and I don’t know how to play golf.

But I rarely get to go out on the lake in the summertime.

Unfortunately in my diverse circle of friends and acquaintances there are very few boat owners.

A nice man named Bruce wanted to go see the game and expressed that wish in his barter ad. I like to go out on the Lake Michigan and had tickets. It seemed as if we were destined to meet.

I rang him up and asked if he had tickets to the game yet. He said, “no” and we started a conversation.

Fast forward about 24 hours later and Bruce was the proud recipient of my seats and I was the proud recipient of a two hour charter for me and roughly 35-40 of my friends.

We even took pictures to commemorate the momentous occasion.

When you see the Red Witch out in late August that just might be me--Ahoy you land lubbing squabs! Prepare to be boarded!

Some things are just better than money.

I’ll be the one in the eye patch and the peg leg.