For those that don't know, I work for a family that owns all six Burger Kings in Traverse City, I work overnight maintnance and make pretty good money (especially in this town) for a man with no college degree. I was just starting an eight-day-in-a-row stretch at work, due to the fact the other guy Mark (who does both crew & maintenance) needed some time off.
So I was starting my long stretch Tuesday night, when about 11:30 p.m. at work, I got a call from my brother Jared (Jared also works as a maintenance man for the same company), we usually have the same nights off (Weds & Thurs). We were on the phone, and he mentioned that he tried to get hold of me for a day or so, and that he had tickets for Thurday's 1 p.m. game between the Tigers and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. He didn't realize that I had traded days with Mark, and that my Thursday was now a work day for this week at least. After a minute or so, I told him, "You know what, I'll sleep all of tomorrow before going into work Wednesday, and we'll head down state after my shift Weds night/Thurs morning"; It's the Tigers and I was just talking to my wife Becky, on how I really wanted to go to the Tigers this summer, maybe next year. Of course, she was 100% behind my passion and got the green light to sleep the day away (on a day that she had the day off) and the plan was on.
Wednesday, I didn't get as much sleep as I planned, and was off to work for a night that was also a "truck night", I had to execute this night perfectly, on a truck night -- you have to sacrifice an hour & half to the truck process, so to do that you have to do everything still, but not as effective & you have to get ahead early -- which I executed to a T, I was on like Verlander during one of his no-no's, and on top of it, my brother wanted me to try to get out a half-hour early. The night couldn't have been more perfect, got off work, I went straight home for a quick rinse, he got some Mickey D's & we were on the road by 6:45 a.m.
We left early, due to possible road construction on I-75, cruise along listening to new music from The Wallflowers and Queens of the Stone Age (which by the way, excellent first listen), Tom Petty (how can you not have a road trip without Petty!), and a band that my brother and I absolutely love, the under-appreciated (but absolutely loved by recent generations) Oasis.
We had to stop a few times, due to the fact we are in our later 30's and our bladders are not what they once were. At one of the pit-stops, we stopped at a gas station to use the restroom, and while I was there, I realized I probably should get some sunblock since I looked as pale as Edward Scissor-hands (okay, maybe not that pale) LOL! I asked the lady behind the counter, if they sold any sunscreen and she said no, but they do (across the parking lot) at the "grocery store" -- Food Castle. If you think the name Food Castle is funny, wait to you hear about this place... so we head over to the "grocery store" and we step inside and it's huge, a big space -- but this is the catch, where's the food? I looked along the wall to my left, and the wall was easily 30 feet high and about 60 feet long, with every type of bottled fifths and liters of alcohol imaginable! Looked at the middle of the store, where there was millions of bottles of wine, the right wall had like 30 doors of coolers full of cold beer, maybe two for soda and Gatorade (I say, maybe), and in the back they had tons of cases of warm beer. There was only two roles of groceries, in the sort of way, you would find groceries at your local Shell Gas Station! Jared was the one that walked in before me, and he quickly looked back at me (with a smirk on his face) and I just said "I know!" -- Talk about the wrong name for your business, it should have been called "Alcohol Castle" It was one of the most ridiculous things I have ever seen, so this will be fun for conversations, and for future trips as well, I plan to show my wife this place for a future trip to a ballgame, LOL!
We had to stop a few times, due to the fact we are in our later 30's and our bladders are not what they once were. At one of the pit-stops, we stopped at a gas station to use the restroom, and while I was there, I realized I probably should get some sunblock since I looked as pale as Edward Scissor-hands (okay, maybe not that pale) LOL! I asked the lady behind the counter, if they sold any sunscreen and she said no, but they do (across the parking lot) at the "grocery store" -- Food Castle. If you think the name Food Castle is funny, wait to you hear about this place... so we head over to the "grocery store" and we step inside and it's huge, a big space -- but this is the catch, where's the food? I looked along the wall to my left, and the wall was easily 30 feet high and about 60 feet long, with every type of bottled fifths and liters of alcohol imaginable! Looked at the middle of the store, where there was millions of bottles of wine, the right wall had like 30 doors of coolers full of cold beer, maybe two for soda and Gatorade (I say, maybe), and in the back they had tons of cases of warm beer. There was only two roles of groceries, in the sort of way, you would find groceries at your local Shell Gas Station! Jared was the one that walked in before me, and he quickly looked back at me (with a smirk on his face) and I just said "I know!" -- Talk about the wrong name for your business, it should have been called "Alcohol Castle" It was one of the most ridiculous things I have ever seen, so this will be fun for conversations, and for future trips as well, I plan to show my wife this place for a future trip to a ballgame, LOL!
Anyways, we get down there pretty easy actually, we made excellent time, I want to say we got down to the stadium easily by 11:30 or 11:45. The temperature was 82 degrees and sunny at game time, and my brother and I are in the bleachers in right field, rows back exactly behind either Torii Hunter or Josh Hamilton (whoever was fielding at the time), it felt a lot warmer actually, and I kept reapplying the sunscreen between the innings, just to be safe. Doug Fister started the game for our Tigers, against Jered Weaver (who is having an off-year), Fister quickly had over 60 pitches the first three innings (not good) and we were surprised to see him actually pitch the 7th inning. The game cruised along, and stayed knotted up 1-1 through 7 full innings, the area and the state of Michigan for that matter have had rain in the forecast for well over a week, so we knew that there was potential, the clouds slightly came in during the 7th and by the 9th & 10th (yes, this one went extras), the sky got darker. The Tigers lost 3-1, and Mike Trout had four hits -- It was really excellent to get to see this kid play, I highly encourage you to go see him play if you get the chance! This was my first game at Comerica Park since 2008, and it was a blast.
My brother and I have made numerous trips up and downstate between our current home of Traverse City, and our old home of the Detroit Metro area (We are from Waterford), and so with the game ending around 4:45 -- I didn't have to work until 10:30 p.m. -- no sweat!
Or so one would think... what would happen the next four hours would boggle our minds of complete disbelief. Comerica Park's parking is built perfectly to a point where you can literally leave the parking and be on the highway in minutes, but there happened to be some sort of accident, and we got rerouted to go up Woodward and then turn onto Mack Avenue to get onto Interstate 75 (I-75) -- still no problem, we have had to go this route before, but everything was a mess bumper to bumper, people leaving the game in droves also slowed things down, we would not get onto the highway until 5:30 p.m. -- still we weren't panicking, we have got upstate in a matter of three hours plenty of times. We get on to I-75, and it's bumper to bumper.
Did I mention just minutes after walking out of the stadium, it started to sprinkle, and by the time we got to the car it started to lightly rain.
Now let me say, I planned on a traffic jam of sorts, we are getting out of a game that ended during a weekday at 4:45 p.m., and we knew we would have to deal with the getting-out of work crowd, but we knew we would still be golden if we got out of the Detroit Metro area at least by 6 to 6:30 p.m. -- the highway would be more clear by the time we got up near Saginaw, and it would definitely be less than what we had to deal with in the morning in which we stopped 3 times, and still got to the stadium in 3 1/2 hours from T.C. -- so it should be easier... you would think!
We were on the highway for about a half-hour and it's raining and now the sky is starting to get a tint of green, and the clouds ahead of us are starting to look pretty strange, we were definitely looking for funnels. The traffic was barely moving, and we inched mile to mile. It was quickly 6 p.m., then it was 6:30 and we realized that we are still seeing signs for the 12 Mile Exit -- by the time we got to Troy, MI (still in the Detroit Metro Area) it was 7 p.m. -- it was the strangest thing, all the locals who were getting off their jobs, who also usually take the side streets and back roads all seem to have decided to take I-75 as well, so anytime we got to a huge area with off-ramps, everything bogged down, for a good 45 minute period my brother would never go over 25 mph, and every time it seems we were finally moving, we would go a mile up the road, turn the corner and bumper to bumper again! We ended up passing the Palace of Auburn Hills by 7:30 p.m., and my fears of actually showing up to work late are starting to go through my head.
I luckily planned ahead, and brought my work clothes and work shoes for work -- just in case the absolute worst happened, and apparently that was happening. Now I pride myself on being at work on time, and I have not called into work for almost two years, so my coworkers know I'm dependable -- so it wouldn't be the end of the world, if I was late, but at this point -- How late? It certainly didn't look good.
Finally, the traffic broke right before the Pontiac exits, and soon we were cruising. The only thing is that we had to fill the tank (a 1/4 tank left) and I was going to need to get some burgers in me, since I'm heading to work. We get off the Waterford exit, our old stomping grounds, and there was a gas station to the right almost right away, but my brother wanted me to eat to, but while we were driving, I'm thinking, man... we are now driving a good ten minutes out of the way (and time is now of the essence), we finally find a McDonald's and we pull in, get out of the car, and we pulled on the doors they were locked. The doors say the lobby is open until 10 p.m. and it was only 8 p.m. We head back to the car where a couple with their two young rugrats are all wearing Tiger gear, and they were surprised that they were closed as well, I mention to the guy "Crazy traffic jam, eh?!" and he was like "Unreal, I never seen anything like it" -- We were not sure if there was a power outage at McD's, due to the lightning and storm in the area, a few of the other businesses in the are also look like they have no lighting, so we are guessing it might be that. We say screw it on the food, and we would pulled into the same gas station just off the exit (so that was 20 minutes down the drain) and while using the restroom, this guy comes in wearing Tiger gear (and he was actually a local) and he said he never seen a traffic jam like that, and couldn't quite explain it himself.
It was now 8 p.m. in Waterford, and we had to get upstate by 10:30 pm., it was not happening. I called one of my managers from my brother's phone and told her the situation, and about the ungodly, traffic jam that was a span of 40 miles and somehow took 3 hours and 15 minutes long! She was cool about it, and I told her we will get there by midnight -- the manager I talked to always gets her people out in good time, and I know that she would be getting out around 12:15, and there is no key to the door (or not for me at least) -- so we had to get there by midnight.
We would not have to deal with anymore traffic jams, but the traffic was still pretty active up to Saginaw which was not helping us with catching up on the time scale, after Saginaw, my brother encouraged me to get some shut-eye. Around Clare, we would deal with a downright, downpour of rain (hydro-planing weather) and in this area, you have to deal with deer and not much lighting from the streets; my brother who handled the whole experience marvelously, just shook his head and said "It's like everything is trying to work against us this evening". The amazing thing, we would make great time from Waterford, and I would get to my work by 11:30 actually -- of course I was going to get through that shift on a Frappe which the ladies had ready for me, and by the time I got off work (not counting maybe the hour of snoozing, I might have gotten on the way back) I was on 33 hours straight of no sleep -- I was on a second wind, when I got out, took the wife to breakfast and crashed a couple hours later, and slept for a good ten hours Friday!
So was I crazy to go on 32-hours of practically no sleep? Sure.
Did I have any regrets? No.
Would I do it again?
Most definitely!
Anything for the love of the game.
So was I crazy to go on 32-hours of practically no sleep? Sure.
Did I have any regrets? No.
Would I do it again?
Most definitely!
Anything for the love of the game.
