Smoke and Mirrors

I can officially cross "fancy nightclub" and "fake celebrity encounter" off my Chicago bucket list.

Last Saturday night, my roommate Laura and I attended my friend’s birthday party at one of those fancy clubs often mentioned in Monday’s gossip columns when recapping the weekend’s star sightings. I’m not a club kind of girl, so I found it amusing—and myself a little out of my element—when I saw a red carpet rolled out for us to walk on as we entered the building. However, we were allowed in only after waiting an ample amount of time of course, simply to remind us we weren’t at your every day establishment (there was no other reason fro the wait as the place was nowhere near filled when we got inside). Luckily, I didn’t have to pay the $20 entrance fee because we were in our group and they waived the cover for “the ladies.”

The best part of the waiting-in-line experience was when the group of scantily dressed girls in front of us decided they had “like been waiting for like ever” and it was “like so stupid” and they started to walk away. I bet Laura the bouncers would try to stop them because they had sky-high heels and hem lines, and ever lower cut tops. As soon as the doorman noticed the mass exodus of skanks, he ran after them. I watched as he then lead them through the VIP entrance without collecting a cover charge from any of them.

I literally laughed out loud. While I have never been to L.A., I can imagine that this is what it might look like on your average Saturday night. Except the girls would never have left the line nor have been chased, as there would have been a queue of appropriately dressed females behind them.

After we made it past the Ivory Tower of bodyguards with tight black shirts and pretentious earpieces (I wonder if they even work), the inside wasn’t anything I hadn’t seen before in a club with much less red tape.

While I would have preferred to spend my night sipping on a $5 beer while sitting on sticky bar stool, it’s not every day one gets beyond the velvet ropes of club heaven (rolls eyes) and I don’t get to hang out with this friend very often, so I was happy to be there. Even if it meant nursing an overpriced vodka and diet. I knew this would happen, so I planned—err, drank—ahead of time to accommodate my student budget.

Within an hour or so of being there, I started talking with a guy and we bonded over our dislike for this particular club and the obnoxious house music bumping in the basement level where we were hanging out. Eventually, he asked if Laura and I wanted to meet his friends. We agreed, as it would hopefully rescue us from the present situation. We followed him up to a VIP room where a group of guys were enjoying bottle service.

As we made our way through the introductions, one of the friends introduced another friend as “this is my boy, he plays for the Chicago Bears, he’s ____” (the identity of this Bears defenseman will remain nameless as to protect the innocent).

I looked at him and said “You are not ____.”

They all chimed in and tried to valiantly convince me—to no avail—that this was indeed ____. This guy looked a lot like ____ , only a lot smaller, and had I not known any better (which I’m assuming they pegged me as a girl who didn’t), I probably would have believed them. Never one to be caught as the butt of any joke, I held fast to my belief that this was not ____.

I asked to see his I.D., agreeing to believe him once I did.

“I don’t need one of those,” he said.

“Then how did you get into this club?” I asked.

“Man, you talk too much,” he said.

He then proceeded to ask me and Laura to leave their little VIP area. We did so with pleasure as we both got a free Grey Goose and cranberry out of it. He was probably mad I didn’t fall for his game. And now I have a story I can tell over and over again.

Once we were returned to the subterranean, I caught up with the guy who brought us to his friends’ VIP party in the first place. He asked why we left and I told him what happened. He felt bad for his rude friend (he later said he was more of an acquaintance than a friend), laughed once I did (assuring him I though the story was funny) and proceeded to tell me that the guy pretending to be one of Chicago’s favorite Bears players was a cop who got made fun of a lot in high school.

The sad part of the story is that I’m sure a lot of girls fall for that guy’s story: a man who looks a lot like ____, surrounded by bottle service in a VIP section of a popular celebrity hangout. However, once again my sports knowledge saved me and prevented me from falling victim to a celebrity look-a-like. Although looking back I wish I had played it better in order to get a second free drink out of it!