Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! This weekend my wife Anne and I attended the third edition of Fan Expo Chicago at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in the suburb of Rosemont, Illinois. Risen from the ashes of the late Wizard World Chicago, which we attended eleven times, Fan Expo has put forth tremendous efforts to maintain the previous showrunners’ geek-marketed traditions for longtime fans’ expectations…

…and you already know how that went for us if you’ve been following along: four new jazz-hands photos, three actor autographs, a few new graphic novels, and perhaps too much exercise and anxiety amid the tens of thousands of attendees and the hours they all likewise spent in lines, many of whom had far worse experiences than we did. Ours possibly only felt worse as events were unspooling in real time. We’re feeling better now, except for the part where we had to return to adulting this week, with mixed results.

Given my penchant for verbosity — and what even is this blog if not my personal verbiage discount clearinghouse to a fault? — I tried streamlining those three chapters at least a smidgen by withholding the travelogue anecdotes that didn’t occur during the con itself or on the convention center’s grounds. That barely worked: those three chapters still totaled 7,454 words. Lord knows I’ve cranked out far lengthier write-ups, though those miniseries tend to contain more cosplay pics as incentive for casual visitors. We’re left with an entire chapter of outtakes for hardcore MCC followers who might have the vaguest interest in the non-geek details of our latest Windy City trip…by which I mean food pics and hotel complaints. The sort of quotidian microdrama you can find only here on MCC or in old issues of American Splendor!

The TL;DR version, if you even made it this far: ’twas a mixed bag. So now you know! Hope that helps!

As for you among the “Reading Everything, Length Notwithstanding” readership, let’s assume for my self-esteem’s sake your faction is real, and toss you the kitchen sink to go with the previous Everything. Tossed underhand, of course.

Our commonest approach to comic-con weekends away from Indianapolis is:

1. Drive into town Friday morning as early as necessary, usually Day One of the show
2. Do the con all day till we’ve had our fill
3. Check into our hotel for one (1) night
4. Awaken Saturday morning exhausted but ready to run ourselves ragged again anyway
5. Do the con again all day till we’ve had our fill or we break down physically or psychologically
6. Drive back home and cheerfully collapse in our own bedding; The End.

We doubted the once-in-a-lifetime nature of the Mark Hamill Experience and its multiple parts would fit well into our usual scheduling preference. Checking into a hotel after Hamill’s Friday 8-pm panel would all but guarantee we’d get stuck with the least wanted room. In past vacations that’s usually meant a first-floor noise-adjacent closet and/or an ADA-equipped room that no one happened to need that day. We also (correctly) predicted we’d be so wiped out from Hamill’s activities and the rest of our to-do list that trying to drive home Saturday night might be hazardous to attempt while wiped out from a 12,000-steps-per-day grind.

So we arranged vacation time for a three-night stay. We both worked at home Thursday; the exact moment we were both off the clock, we filled up the car and headed up I-65 toward Chicago, then around it toward Rosemont to the northwest. Cheap supper was at a McDonald’s in Crown Point. We asked about their all-new collectors’ cups that’d just been released two days prior. Of course they were sold out.

Our hotel was in the diverse, blue-collar area of Schiller Park, less than ten minutes from the Stephens Center yet far from the after-con parties that have nothing to do with us. By avoiding I-90 in favor of I-294 we had virtually no traffic issues except pummeling rains during our first Indiana hour and Google Maps directions that led us into the middle of I-294 construction toward an exit that presently doesn’t exist.

To their credit, the beds were the most comfortable I’ve had in months — the firmer, the better for my chronic back issues. I took the bed next to the A/C unit, which blasted me head-on at every activation. I’d drift off to sleep cheerfully only to awaken shivering in the wee hours. The room had no microwave or fridge, which we can handle just like the old days. It took me a few minutes to change the TV menu from Spanish to English, which was a fun puzzle. (As previously storied, we took German in high school. If we ever tour the right Pennsylvania villages, I like to think we’ll be ready. Or for that matter, northern Indiana’s Amish communities, though TV menus won’t be an issue.)

Less endearing: the room had a single trashcan, a single gallon in size. Housekeeping never entered once in our entire three nights’ stay. Saturday morning Anne rigged a plastic grocery bag on top as a trashcan extender. By Sunday morning, our filled Mega-Mini-Can was as tall as the bathtub.

One of their two elevators was out of order, which would’ve grieved us more if the place had been busy. Upon initial arrival we noted an inordinate number of black SUVs in their lot as well as on-duty police idling by the main entrance. We wondered if perhaps some dignitaries had arrived a few days early for the Democratic National Convention, though you’d think such folks would insist on the poshest Magnificent Mile accommodations. By Friday evening those all vanished, police included, apparently unrelated and unexplained.

Thursday night we steeled ourselves for the con marathon to come. For our evening entertainment, we stayed awake through most of an HBO showing of Barbie, which Anne still hadn’t seen. Now she has a slightly wider frame of reference for the inspired cosplayers we’ve encountered over the past year.

Friday morning we shared an elevator ride with a young lady sporting one of artist Drew Blank’s Pedro Pascal tote bags, which we’ve admired at a few shows. We then found my car and stared in horror to see the tree I’d parked beneath was apparently Chicago’s hottest bird nightclub. My poor li’l car was covered from fender to bumper with droppings, the most it’s ever been trashed. Some of that mess may have been drunken bird vomit, or perhaps other bird fluids sprayed in all directions during their overnight bacchanalia. Somehow they blessedly missed the door handles, a small mercy on their part. Luckily I’m not a geek bachelor who needs his ride to impress would-be dates, and it was the strongest possible disincentive to repel Chicago car thieves. If anyone we knew had seen us and asked, I could claim I tricked out my wheels to look like the Heap.

Somehow we held on to our appetites despite cruising around in my Pizza-the-Huttmobile. Cheap breakfast was at a gas-station Dunkin Donuts five minutes’ walk away, which describes most Chicagoland Dunkin locations. Wherever you go, Dunkin is right over there. Because Fan Expo had chosen to open late Friday — a factor that surely compacted everyone’s schedules and may thereby have contributed to the congestion that would ultimately drive us out sooner than we would’ve preferred — we had some free time in the hotel before we needed to be anywhere.

We arrived at the usual parking garage around 11. Fully expecting an overlong day with the Hamill panel at the distant end, we grabbed early lunch at one of the places that would validate parking. For the past several years the restaurant district had been named MB Financial Park; at some point it was worsely rechristened Parkway Bank Park, which I promise I didn’t make up for a punchline. They count fewer eateries among their tenants than they used to, but we were in luck: exactly one of those survivors opened at 11 am, a craft brewery called Crust Brewing, in a location that’s changed identities a few times. I remember when it was a German Brauhaus last decade.

I was happy with mine, but Anne’s was the fancier and healthier of the two — their “To the Moon” salad advertised with spinach, arugula, roasted pistachios, pickled onions, prosciutto, goat cheese, cherry tomatoes, and champagne vinaigrette. Two of us in tandem couldn’t finish all the arugula, and we never found the prosciutto.

Supper was in the Stephens’ Center main lobby, which had a new bar naturally serving alcohol (still useless against us) along with grilled cheese and grilled-cheese-with-meats. The calories got us through the end of the Hamill panel and let us sit for a while. After said shindig, we didn’t return to the hotel till after 10 p.m., to the chagrin of Anne the early riser. Blame the lateness of the panel and the parking garage gridlock that ensued for a good while afterward as a couple thousand of us all tried exiting at the same time.

Nevertheless, we had to arise. Cheap Saturday morning breakfast was at a deserted McDonald’s a mile down the road. We asked about their all-new collectors’ cups that’d just been released four days prior. Of course they were sold out.

As previously confessed, lunch was cakes. By 3 pm we’d finished our entire to-do list, we were dead on our poor middle-aged feet, and I was fed up with being pinned inside a teeming flock of 70,000 where fluid movement was next to impossible and pausing to snap cosplay photos was absolutely impossible. We fled the convention and got early dinner at a place we’d heard many good things about for years but had never actually seen with our own eyes, let alone entered: Murray Bros. Caddyshack!

Under the aegis of Bill Murray and his large family, which includes at least three other brothers who’re also actors (we once saw Joel live!), the movie-golf-themed establishment opened its first location in St. Augustine in 2001, followed by the Rosemont location some time later. I’ve been told by multiple sources a live Murray can occasionally be spotted inside, though we had no such luck.

Caddyshack is attached to the Crowne Plaza Chicago O’Hare Hotel, right across the street from the Stephens Center’s southern tip. You can save many steps walking through the hotel, back and to the left, which is an awesome thing to know so that you don’t waste time and wear yourself out even more by walking all the way around the block to the far southwest entrance, just as we did because no one was ever kind enough to tell us how to GET THERE. Sure would’ve been great if Google Maps could’ve simply said, “Oh, hey, just cut through the hotel and enjoy some A/C for a while” rather than ordering us to march around in the 85-degree flaming sun that felt even more murderous in our state of utter exhaustion. NOT THAT WE’RE BITTER.

Our waitress could just tell by looking that we’d walked all the way around the block and might crumble into ashes at any minute. She kept us stocked up on fluids throughout the entire meal and offered the courtesy of to-go drinks at the end, which always brightens my mood. Better still: they also validated our parking. The sandwiches weren’t groundbreaking — mine was literally a McDonald’s Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese with the same ingredients, but improved versions thereof, and with Bill’s name slapped on it — but they didn’t need to be. They filled a need, as did this very oasis in general. The real winner was the appetizer, which had been justly recommended to us by others.

Upon returning to the hotel, we found the second elevator back in operation. We boarded it and punched our floor’s button. It rose a few inches, rumbled, and went back down. It rose again, rumbled again, and settled again. After a third failure to launch, the door opened and we hurriedly exited. Anne tripped mid-step — the elevator floor was a few inches below the lobby floor. We counted our blessings as the first elevator arrived and did its job. We were grateful nothing worse had come of that. We spent the rest of the night laying around like slugs.

Sunday morning, we had no desire to return to the con, but still needed to eat before leaving town. Downstairs, the elevator that threatened us bodily harm was turned off again and now bore the shame of an out-of-order sign.

Out of a desire for simplicity, breakfast was in the restaurant attached to the hotel — not a chain, but not mind-blowing. We ordered ordinary dishes that took a while to show up until a second server arrived to assist. They never once brought or offered any refills. This was no Caddyshack.

Rather than watching me spend 30-60 minutes on Galaga alone, we ate, took our leave, hurriedly finished packing, and fled the Chicagoland area while the Fan Expo Chicago hordes were still finishing their itineraries and before the next hordes arrived for the Democratic National Convention.

The drive back to Indy was swift and free of danger. We arrived home with new memories, new graphic novels, new geek doodads, new memories, new celebrity names to add to our ongoing master list, new photo ops to add to our jazz-hands Pinterest gallery, and zero McDonald’s collector cups. Because sometimes you just have to know when to give up.

And fortunately we’d spent so very little in the exhibit hall that I could indulge in a desperately needed car wash. Stupid, stupid bird creatures.

The End. Thanks for reading! Lord willing, we’ll see you next con, coming later this quarter.

Other chapters in this very special miniseries:

Part 1: Mark Hamill Live!
Part 2: A Single Measly Cosplay Gallery!
Part 3: Stars and Strifes Forever!