Kohl Center-
Morale is high as we set up our base camp. Hockey voucher exchange is a mere 12 days away. I look out over the barren wasteland surrounded by waist-high concrete barricades. I feel safe but terribly alone and can't help but reflect on how many have tried before us and how few have succeeded.
We settle into our sleeping bags and let the reality of being first in line warm us. We lie three across on a black and yellow plaid blanket. I am on the left. In the center is our fearless leader, the man who set 12 as the number of days we would wait. As hockey season approaches, he seems to be losing his grip on reality. His antics worry us but will doubtlessly serve to keep us amused in the long days ahead.
I am to be relieved at 8 a.m. That is all well and good, but the Kohl Center doesn't open its doors for another 12 minutes, and the need to relieve myself weighs much more heavily on my being than the whereabouts of my replacement.
A storm is coming. We can feel it in the slow thickening of the air. We joke and go over our plan again and again. When the rain starts, we'll pull the large green tarp over ourselves and our belongings. Simple enough, but as we examine the tarp, shredded along the edges and riddled with gaping holes, we wonder how dry we'll be by morning. None of us voice these concerns.
Others have joined us now, three groups in all. There is a certain distance between our group and the one just behind us. Perhaps eight feet.
It's raining. I write this by flashlight as drops pelt our tarp. My comrades are asleep, oblivious to the downpour. Drunks stop by to visit the group behind us. They bring with them a small sapling, wrenched from the ground in a moment of drunken revelry. I offer up a prayer that it will be the sole causality of our campout but am answered only by the persistent tapping of the rain.
My friend has gone home to put on dry clothes. The tarp was of no help to him. He returns, and we try to warm ourselves with activity. The Kohl Center gave us two pushbrooms to sweep away the leaves and Oreo crumbs. We perform a slo-mo bastardized rendition of \Stomp!"" Our numb hands are unable to keep??the beat.
Tickets for The Eagles' show go on sale today. Kohl Center employees trickle past us, asking if we've camped out for that purpose. I'm tempted to answer yes, just to lower their general opinion of humanity.
More drunks.
I slept longer than I intended and wake to find my friends from the night before gone. It is just me and one other person this morning. She's sitting in one of our folding chairs reading when I wake and offers me my choice of hot tea or coffee. My sleeping bag is damp with dew and rank with the odor of digesting junk food. I comment that the breeze seems to be blowing from the direction of the Ag School, and she's kind enough to agree.
Fans have started to return from the game. Food supplies are dwindling. Morale is still high, but we're only just beginning to realize the gravity of our undertaking. It's hockey time.
chunkkicke@yahoo.com.
