Deserae and I get away to Chicago every year for Labor Day weekend to celebrate our anniversary, and every year we have a fantastic time because we do not visit the Sears Tower.*
*I know it’s the Willis Tower now, but I’m going to keep calling it the Sears Tower because it’s the Sears Tower.
I’ve never had anything against the Sears Tower, but I’ve already flown in an airplane, you know? I feel like I have a pretty good idea of what a city looks like from high up.
Anyways, it was 95 degrees in Chicago this past weekend, and if there’s one activity that Deserae has made quite clear that she does not enjoy, it is a full day of walking and sweating in the sun. So I bought a City Pass that gave us VIP admission to four air-conditioned museums and the Sears Tower during our trip.
If you’re thinking about buying a City Pass for your next trip to Chicago, allow me to review the activities:
Museum of Science and Industry: Fun
Adler Planetarium: Fun
Shedd Aquarium: Fun
Field Museum of Natural History: They have a T-Rex skeleton
Sears Tower: Nightmare
The Sears Tower was the last thing we did on our trip. We arrived just before sunset after a full day of walking and sweating (but not in the sun!). All we wanted to do was eat, but first we had to look out a window from a tall building because we paid for it. Our Uber driver dropped us off at the Sears Tower, where we found 2,000 people who felt exactly the same way. The line wrapped around the corner.
Upon seeing this, I’d usually laugh, turn around and go to dinner. But not tonight. Tonight, I had a City Pass that allowed me to skip to the front of the line. So I walked into the Sears Tower and asked the helpful worker where the City Pass line is.
“You have to wait outside,” she said.
“Oh, no, I have a City Pass.”
“The City Pass line is there, but first you have to wait OUTSIDE.” She said “OUTSIDE” like she was hoping I wanted to rumble.
I walked back outside. “We have to wait in this line,” I said to Deserae.
“This line?!”
I nodded. We walked around the corner to find that the line wrapped around yet another corner.
“This line?!”
I nodded.
“What are we going to do?”
“Well I feel like she was wrong,” I said as we walked back toward the door. “Maybe you could ask her…”
That’s when I saw someone cut right in front of 2,000 people, open the door, then go into the City Pass line. She did not get mauled. Then someone else did it.
“You know what?” I said. “Let’s just do it. I feel like we’re probably allowed. What’s the worst they can do to us, kick us out?” With that I stepped in front of a very sweaty family of four, got in the City Pass line and turned around to look at Deserae.
Deserae is my better half in every possible way, especially the way in which she feels bad about cutting in front of 2,000 people. She just stared at me through the glass, looked at the lady next to her pushing a stroller, then looked back at me with eyes that said, “Please do not make me do this.” I stared back at her with a look that was supposed to reassure her by reminding her about all the times I dragged her to the front row during the seventh inning of baseball games and nothing bad happened, but I don’t think that message got communicated. Finally, Deserae pushed through.
“I feel bad,” she whispered.
Then, just to make her feel worse, a worker got in front of the line and said, “Just so you all know, it’s three hours to the elevators from here!” Deserae looked up at me with sad eyes. I stared straight ahead. “OK, you guys can get in the elevator now,” the guy said.
I got in and prepared to rocket up 103 stories. Instead, we slowly descended down to the basement. Then the doors opened up and – surprise! – another massive line. It felt like a cruel and unusual thing for the Sears Tower people to do, but as we were about to find out, they were not even close to done yet.
With our City Passes, we got to skip to the front, where we were greeted by a metal detector. I’m no security expert, but I feel like taking people’s guns away before making them wait in a 4-hour line with sweaty, annoying people might be a little smarter.
I feel like taking people’s guns away before making them wait in a 4-hour line with sweaty, annoying people might be a little smarter.
After the metal detector was a woman taking group pictures in front of – I am not making this up – a green screen. You could then purchase a picture of your group at the top of the digitally recreated Sears Tower so you could have this conversation for the rest of your life:
“Cool picture! Where is it?”
“The Sears Tower!”
“Sweet! How high is that?”
“Actually, it was in the basement.”
The basement?”
“In front of a green screen.”
“How much was the picture?”
“$39.95.”
“I don’t think we can be friends any more.”
We politely skipped the picture and then skipped – you guessed it – another long line. Finally, we arrived at the elevators. Two elevators. Two elevators that each held 20 people. With tens of thousands of people in line, plus a steady stream of City Pass line jumpers, a person walking up at 7 p.m. could expect to see the glorious Chicago skyline at 4:30 a.m.
As we ascended to the 103rd floor, a TV in the elevator told us all of the famous tall things we were passing. The Space Needle. The Great Pyramid. The Eiffel Tower. Finally the doors opened to reveal something that was better than all of those famous things combined: a cloud of body odor!!
When we stepped out of the elevator, we discovered that the insanely long Labor Day weekend line caused a few things to happen.
- Once people got to the Skydeck, they refused to leave until they felt like they had gotten enough value for their time in line. Unfortunately, that is impossible, so people were just spending the day up there.
- These people had spent a good portion of time waiting outside in 95 degrees, which means they were all drenched in sweat.
- Most of the people we saw outside the building were Midwestern tourists. I’m guessing the long line weeded out most of these folks, because the vast majority of people who made it to the Skydeck only stuck out the line because they had traveled halfway around the world to see this view.
- I am not racist and I am not judging – I am just sharing an observation. Some of these cultures have not embraced deodorant.
The result was a smelly, shoulder-to-shoulder free-for-all 1,353 feet in the air. The 103rd floor has windows all around, but to get to the famous Ledge, you had to stand in a mosh pit. I have to assume this is usually a regulated line with ropes and everything, but not tonight. Tonight, the mob ran the line. To get into the tiny glass box, you had to get in the middle of the mob and push the person in front of you for 20 minutes. Once you got to the box, you had to be willing to share it with 20 other people. I don’t know how much weight the box is designed to hold, but I have to imagine it wasn’t made for 20 people. If it would have broken free that night, we would have lost two dozen people and 17 selfie sticks.
Deserae and I finally made it inside the box, squeezed into a corner and handed my phone to a girl who’d been pushing on our backs for the last 20 minutes. The result is my favorite photo of all time and will probably be the background on my phone until the day I die.
Deserae and I somehow made it off the ledge alive and discovered a few final injustices on the top floor of the Sears Tower.
- We came across a quiet guy who’d just found an empty window where he could take pictures. The second he started unpacking his tripod, a worker zoomed up and told him that tripods weren’t allowed. Apparently it’s OK to turn a glass box hanging off a building into a clown car, but a tripod was a bridge too far.
- The only food available to those who’d waited for five hours to get to the Skydeck was a $10 piece of fudge.
- Once you’re ready for the elevator to go downstairs, you have to…wait in another line!
- The elevator doesn’t go to the first floor. It goes back to the basement, where you have to wander through one of the longest gift shops I’ve ever seen to get to the final elevator back to fresh air.
At the end of the gift shop was a t-shirt that perfectly summarized my feelings about escaping the Sears Tower. I almost bought it.
LIFE LESSON #84
Want to experience the Sears Tower without visiting Chicago? Get a window seat for a cross-country flight and bury your nose in your armpit the whole time.