The Greatest #DadLife Willis Tower Story Ever Told

Or at least the greatest that happened to me a few weeks ago. Also: Anyone got $148 I can borrow?

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Dad life is nothing if not an endless series of decisions. The best part is half the time no matter what you decide, you’re wrong, and the other half you’re also wrong. And so it was that I was halfway out the door at the Willis Tower in Chicago a few weeks ago after deciding that $148 for four people was too much to pay to go to the top.

I didn’t want to pay that much to go to the top of a tall building, especially on a cloudy day, and especially when I much prefer to be amid the hustle and bustle of the city rather than looking down upon it. But I hesitated to leave because I also don’t want to be the type of dad who says no on vacation because I don’t want my wallet to be lighter.

I asked myself: Twenty years from now, will I care about that $148? No, I will not, not even if I’m eating cat food because I just spent my last $148 on Taylor Swift’s presidential re-election campaign.

Twenty years from now, is it possible my wife, daughters and I will look back on the visit to the top fondly and thus be glad that I forked over that much?

Yes.

Was I willing to bet $148 that we would remember going to the top fondly?

This is what I pondered as we started to leave.

Then, inspiration!

I could write a newsletter called “The View From The Top,” full of helpful life lessons and claim the $148 as a business expense. I decided to write this gibberish instead.

I’m a journalist not an accountant so I have no clue how much claiming the Willis Tower tickets as an expense will actually save me. Or if I’m being honest if it’s even a legit business expense. I’m going to pretend it is AND that it saved me all $148 because why the hell not.

And so there we were, exiting the elevator 45,678 feet above the streets of Chicago (note to self: fact check that) and walking straight toward windows that look out on Lake Michigan!

Which is to say, straight toward windows that were completely covered by clouds.

Which is to say I might as well have lit that $148 on fire.

But wait!

In the time it took us to walk the 20 feet to the windows, the clouds whisked away and there was Lake Michigan, big and blue and wavy and in the time it took me to type that, it disappeared into the clouds again and in the time it to me to point out the clouds were back, they were gone again and so on.

The seemingly random arrival and dispersal of clarity is exactly like trying to understand a teen-ager except ha no there’s never any clarity when you’re trying to understand a teen-ager.

We walked to the other side of the building, where The Ledge is. The Ledge is a glass partition that hangs out a few feet from the building so you can look at the people 45,678 (ibid) down below. Except you couldn’t see squat. I might as well have shoved my face into a gallon of milk.

I had shelled out $148 (as I might have mentioned) so we waited around and hoped it would clear. To kill time we re-enacted the scene from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off where they lean on the glass and the staff there told us we were the first people to ever do that. Total lie of course there’s a sign telling you to do that.

We got back in line for The Ledge and I kid you not the clouds completely disappeared as our turn arrived to walk onto The Ledge, as if God saw us coming and blew the clouds away because He wanted me to shut my cake hole about the $148.

Even though you know that glass ain’t going anywhere it’s still hard to step out onto it because you are, as I mentioned, 45,678 above the ground, and when you google “willis tower the ledge” it autofills “cracks” for you, which I guess is better than “cracks and family of four falls to their death after dad splurges for tickets.”

We got a great family picture on The Ledge, and we all agreed that our trip to the top of Willis Tower was the highlight of the two days we spent in Chicago, and it was one of the funner days we’ve ever had on vacation.

As we rode the elevator down I was proud of myself for parting with that $148. Of course we were starving by that time, and lunch at the Willis Tower costs //keels over at price of one sandwich//.

Thank you for reading. I should have said this earlier, but there’s a charge for this particular edition. You’ll never guess how much.