When last we left our dashing duo of Lindsay and Eric (in Part 4), they had been staggered by an awful breakfast at IHOP and were in search of food. Real. Actual. Food. They were in such a rush that Eric, the idiot, ran a toll and was punished in no way shape or form, except maybe Karmicly. This is on the Thursday. Before that, Part 3 chronicled the first night of our vacation, Wednesday, and the hilarity of hotel night managers. Parts 1 and 2 were all about the last day of our vacation (Saturday) and all that went wrong and, again, how stupid Eric (hey! that's me!) is. Confused yet? Basically, I've covered the beginning and end of the vacation, and I've yet to cover the middle -- Thursday afernoon/evening and all of Friday (which was an amazingly fun day). So! Off with part 5!

---

After I had run the toll and offended the trailing log-hauling semi, Lins and I were on the lookout for a sub place -- they always have safe vegetarian food. Kind of a comfort we were in need of after the IHOP fiasco, really. Blimpie, Cousins, we'd even stop at Subway if we didn't see one of the other, far superious sub shops on the way. So we drove. And drove. And drove.

Before we knew it, we were already in Schaumburg. Hey. Ikea's in Schaumburg, isn't it? Why, yes. It is. There was nothing worth stopping for from just inside the Illinois state line to Schaumburg, our destination. So we were both not feeling the best -- damn you IHOP! -- and we were both starving.

I've been to Schaumburg at least 5 times, and I knew there was a Cousins sub shop by Gino's East pizza. Speaking of Gino's, if you ask anyone in the area where you should get you some Chicago-style Pizza, they all say Gino's! for some reason. Last time I was there, with the Sour and Bill L, we ate at Gino's. I was unimpressed. Crappy crust, subpar pizza. Good beer, though. Anyway, I remembered that, yes, there's sub place just out of the direct path to Ikea.

Previously unmentioned: Lins bought a 2002 entertainment.com coupon book for Chicago specifically for this trip. The book was $5 on closeout and it has tons of coupons for restaurants -- mostly buy one get one free meals. So, really, you get the $5 back the first time you use it -- and we both got to eat most of our meals for around $20, a real bargain! We used a coupon at IHOP and later had a buy one get one free sub at Cousins, too. Keep the cheap meals a rollin in!

So we stopped at Cousins and had a delicious provolone sub on some yummy bread. We devoured our subs. They were edible. They were safe. They were... actually pretty damned good. As a matter of fact, they were so good, we ended up eating there twice -- again on Hellfire Day Saturday.

On the Hellfire Day, we stopped at this same Cousins sub shop for lunch before Ikea, Part 2 -- I can't believe I forgot to tell you about this. We went in and noticed 2 boys, probably 3 and 5 years old, sitting at a table with about 42 toys strewn about the table and surrounding area -- no adult or older person with them. We ordered, got our food and grabbed a place to sit at the bar-style window seats. One of the workers came out from behind the counter and started talking to the kids, confirming our suspicion that they were one of the worker's -- her -- kids.

We felt so bad for the lady. Maybe her sitter backed out and she had no choice but to bring her kids with her to work. Maybe she couldn't afford a sitter. She probably didn't get paid time off, so she had to come in with the kids. There was only so much she could do to keep an eye on them while she was working. After we were there for about 5 minutes, the boys had grown tired of their table of toys and were running around outside and throwing stuff back and forth. Then they'd come back in. Then they'd run out. Each time the door would open, it would make the *sing song* door has been opened noise. So that was a little grating, but understandable -- hey, they're kids and all. Lins and I kept on eating. Kind of slowly, really, but we were eating. We were really ready to just go home, too -- and you know how that ends. Eventually, the kids tired of playing and throwing things in the front of the building and came back inside. Now they wanted to play in the back of the building. The 3 year old opened the back door. The fire alarm started blasting immediately. It was wailing. Lindsay and I sat, calmly eating our food. Meanwhile the air around us was afire with Whoops and Whas and the phone ringing and the workers yelling over the din to try and get the damn alarm shut off. Meanwhile, Lindsay and I look at each other, shrug, take a bite, and slowly chew. It was such a Tarantino moment. The people walking by were looking inside at the workers frantically running back and forth and the kids covering their ears and yelling to drown out the shrill siren and they see us -- just eating. Like nothing was out of the ordinary. It was great.

Ah. End tangent. Back to the actual story.

It's Thursday again, if you were lost. So we left Cousins and drove around looking for the Giant Blue Building we like to call Ikea. After a few guesses, a few wrong turns, a few right turns (I can find an obscure sub shop, but not Ikea?) we finally made it to Ikea. *angel music*

We shopped. And shopped. *slower angel music* And shopped. For. Five. Hours. *needle being pulled off the record noise*

Five. Hours.

On our feet and stressing over big purchases. Five Hours in a crowded store with miles and miles of nice looking merchandise. For Five Hours.

Near the end of this five hour journey-of-love-and-self-discovery, Lins and I had narrowed down our purchases to the absolute necessities (sure we did!) and headed to a cash register so that we could pay, load up the car, and go lay down somewhere and pass out.

*register noise* $900, please. We had a dresser for our bedroom, a wardrobe, file cabinet and computer desk for our computer room, a display cabinet for the dining room, a chair, tv stand, and coffee and end tables for my Den of the Future™ and much much more stuff.

*gulp* We'll have to take some of this back.

I mean, we had saved up a little. You know, to get a wardrobe and storage for the computer room -- our house lacks a coat closet, you see -- and we'd wanted to get a few other things, but sheesh, not $900 worth of things to be assembling bit by bit by bit for the next 8 months. So we returned a couple things on the spot -- and one more thing on Saturday. Relief. That felt better than knowing we had dropped a huge chunk of change at the Svede-ish Furni Giant.

After the Five Hour Ikea Experience, we were wiped out. We wanted to do something, you know, since it was Chicago, vacation and all, but damn it, our bodies were saying otherwise. Sleep! Eat! Don't move too much! For the love of God, kids, sit down!

So we checked into Chicago hotel #1, changed shoes to appease our aching feet and gingerly walked next door to Giordano's for drinks and Chicago-style deep dish pizza to appease our cry baby stomachs. We've had Giordano's before, and it's one of our favorite Chicago pizza joints.

Delicious deep dish garlic pizza, a few drinks each and trying not to fall asleep ensued. We were there til about 11pm. After, we strolled around to the other side of the hotel, looking for a bar to have a couple more drinks before calling it a night. We found a ridiculous little sports bar with 80 or so neon signs all crammed into their front window. Um, anything else open? We walked around a bit more -- all the restaurants were closing up shop, you know, Thursday night and all. Yes, friends, we drank it up in a green booth at Shooter's with the worst 80's 90's and other assorted crappy music mix ever blasting all around us before calling it a night. They had a "DJ" spinning these tunes. It was all awful. But it was awful in a good sort of way. Long live vacation!

Thanks for stopping by -- hopefully I can get these Chicago stories all wrapped up for you guys soon.
Eric