Super Bowl Report, Part II

I’ll spare you the graphic details of the following morning. I will however put it to you like this; my stomach felt as if it contained two wolverines that were in the midst of some instinctive mating ritual where males battle to the death for the right to impregnate the female. And my head felt like one of Bonham’s drums, the pounding was constant and even had a rhythm you could tap your foot to.

I woke around noon to my room mate walking through the door and announcing there was a lengthy line at the Sports Book. He was counting his tickets.

I quickly showered and headed downstairs to place my bets, but when I entered the Book the manager came over the speaker announcing the system was down.

“Ah Fuck!” The short, fat man in front of me announced. He was wearing a Colts’ jersey.

“Easy pal,” I assured him. “There’s still plenty of time for you to place your losing bet. Your boys are going down. I hate your quarterback, and so does eveyone else outside of Indy. He looks like a Special.”

“Get fucked, buddy” he replied with a smile.

Before our conversation could get carried away the speakers boomed once again, with the manager announcing the system was back up.

I approached the big haired lady behind the counter and announced my bets, peeling off a handful of crisp, clean, fresh $100 bills.

“Good luck sir,” she said as she handed me my tickets.

“Don’t need it lady, this one’s a sure thing.”

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Twenty minutes later we were in the Colosseum Ballroom at Caesars. There were projection screens on every wall, tables of 10 everywhere, a buffet spread lining the room, and a sports book at the entry way just incase you needed to place a last minute bet. We met up with our group, the same people we had met the previous evening for dinner, and discussed who placed what bets.

“I got Hester 5 to 1 to return a kickoff or a punt,” one of them boasted as he passed the ticket my way.

“Not a bad bet, but the real money is Hester to score the first touchdown of the game. It’s 50 to 1 right now,” I explained.

“That’s a sucker bet. He’ll take one to the house, but there’s no way he scores first.”

I smiled, “We’ll see.”

We made small talk for an hour or so, sharing our stories about the first night in town, eagerly awaiting kickoff. Time flew by. I scanned the room to see it was chock full of Bears fans. I only saw one Peyton Manning jersey. This was a Chicago crowd. This was Chicago’s game.

Billy Joel’s rendition of the nation anthem went under the time Vegas set for one of their most outrageous prop-bets. It was time for kickoff.

The room blew up when the Bears won the toss.

“Looks like a few people got dough on Hester. This could be interesting.”

A few short seconds later I found myself jumping up and down on my chair screaming at the top of my lungs. People were cheering, jumping out of their seats, high-fiving. He was going to do it. 30. 20. 10.

“HOLY FUCK!” I was screaming. “NO FUCKING WAY!”

This was it. The Bears made a statement on the very first play. This game was going to be a landslide reminiscent of Super Bowl XX. I was sure I would be collecting just over $1200 in a few short hours.

Unbeknownst to me….