Bucket List AGAIN.

Not only did I attend my first Bulls game Saturday night, I also crossed some things off my bucket list, things I had no idea were even ON my bucket list. Sometimes I come across situations that are just so fun and unique that I assign them to my bucket list on the fly.  Saturday night, some of these things were:

1. Get hugged, kissed, and slightly fondled by Benny the Bull.

2. Say "Hi Lovie!" to Lovie Smith, head coach of the Chicago Bears, as he brushes past me mere moments after my encounter with Benny.

The third thing was perhaps the favorite lesson of the night.  We learned that "buy me lunch" means "slip money into my usher jacket as a bribe to get you into better seats." We learned this important educational lesson from an usher, one I will not name so as to not get him in trouble (cause the UC randomly started following me on Twitter last week, so who knows!)

We arrived at UC about an hour before the game so we walked around the lower level to soak in all the activities (holy cow - there were a lot.) While doing so, we popped into an aisle to get our picture taken, and in the process I proceeded to tell the usher "This is our first ever Bulls game! We're so excited!!!!!!" (I get gushy when I'm having a fun time. Really gushy.) He said "Where you sitting?" I replied "Oh, up in the 300 level, we're just slowing making our way. We were offered free tickets and couldn't pass them up!" He stated "When the second quarter starts, come see me...maybe if you buy me lunch I can see if I can get you in this section..." My friend and I were a little flabbergasted and squealed "Oooh, okay!" While walking away, my friend said "Lunch? It's nighttime..." I said "Well, maybe since he works different hours he calls it lunch since it's halfway through his work day?" She thought this made perfect sense (and of course I thought it made perfect sense) so we made plans to check back at the second quarter.

We enjoyed the first part of the game in our ticketed seats, while scoping out empty seats in the section that we were hopefully going to be sitting in and worrying about how all this was going to work and whether or not we'd get kicked out of the game (put two girls with high anxiety levels into a situation like this, and you get lots of "what if's..."). When the first quarter ended we quickly made our way out of our aisle and down the stairs and my friend was like "Let's wait to get something to eat when we get down there, since we're getting him lunch..." I was all "Good idea!"  Yes. Yes we really thought we were going to buy him food.

I don't want to make this post pages and pages long, so I'll sum up that we walked up in his aisle, he said "You can put the lunch in my pocket..." to which we were like "What?" with puzzled expressions on our face, followed quickly by an "Oooooohhhhhhhh...LUNCH." Then we scurried out of the aisle when he said "Walk out and walk back in..." and headed straight to the bar for another Guinness. While at the bar we sent texts to about everyone we knew who might be able to give us guidance (including Twitter) "How much do you tip an usher for a seat upgrade?" Answers were varied, perhaps shedding light on the fact that some of the people we sent texts to are incredibly cheap, so my friend and I came to a decision we were comfortable with, walked back in the aisle, I slipped the "lunch" in his pocket, and he took us to some killer seats. During halftime, they celebrated the Bulls 1991 Championship, which meant SCOTTIE PIPPEN AND MICHAEL JORDAN were on the court. Ummmm...worth it.