How die-hard of a fan are you?
Of course you’ll splash yourself in green and yellow and make that short trek to Mac Court or Autzen Stadium for every game while mixing in a few road trips to venues near by, but truly how far would you go in the name of fandom?
Compared with a few Chicago Bears fans, likely, you suck.
There’s a reason fan is short for fanatic. Lunatic may be more appropriate to describe what some Bears fans were willing to do for the opportunity to watch their team on Sunday punch its first ticket to the Super Bowl since 1985 with a convincing 39-14 win against the Saints.
The lunacy starts with Colleen Pavelka, who was pregnant and due to give birth today but induced labor early Friday so her husband and long-time Bears fan, Mark Pavelka, would not miss Sunday’s game.
“I thought, how could (Mark) miss this one opportunity that he might never have again in his life?” Colleen, 28, told The Associated Press.
It was nearly as rabid on Craigslist, the popular trading-post Web site. One cosmetic surgeon was willing to trade services such as Botox and Liposuction for a pair of good seats in Soldier Field.
There were many others offering services and goods to get a chance to watch the beloved Bears. They included: a professional singer, fitness equipment, personal training sessions, golf lessons, vacations in Mexico or Florida, steaks from a meat company, a PlayStation 3, Chicago Bulls tickets, a 1967 Ford Mustang, sailing cruises, drywall services, appraisals and Thomas Kinkade paintings, among other things.
Just think of the endless possibilities available if you owned a group of tickets for this game. You could eat steaks and play golf at the condo while having someone appraise and drywall your house filled with Kinkade paintings. Then, you could come back and get lipo to work off those pounds caused from the steaks and keep them off with your personal trainer, who will help you look good in your ’67 Mustang equipped with a PlayStation 3 as you roll to the Bulls game every night and sail the day away.
Or you could have just gone to the Bears game.
Those fans who already owned tickets had their own unique postings and requests. Here’s one, word for word:
“I live in a trailor and have know job. I’m 5’10 and 365 pds and I have an extra ticket to the game this weekend. I sold my other trailor to my grandmama for cash to buy these tickets. Would love to take a lovely female to the game and start a lasting relationship. (SIC)”
There were multiple men looking for some arm candy to take to the game, most requesting pictures of interested females before making a selection.
Some others hoping to obtain tickets used various strategies aside from money and services. There was the sympathy angle; One poster needed tickets so that her husband, a die-hard Bears’ fan who’d been wearing a jersey for three weeks straight, might actually take the thing to get dry-cleaned.
Another said his firefighter brother was terminally ill with brain cancer and at least a few claimed to be “hot chicks” needing tickets to the game. Through all the madness, one poster said, “Your forum conduct and skewed priorities are reprehensible, scalpers.”
I say, thank you, Bears fans, for being an inspiration to us all.
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