CHICAGO -- Vacation is just about over. I'm getting that sick "Sunday feeling" even though I've got an entire weekend left to enjoy before work starts on Monday. Checking my e-mail at the office in the Merchandise Mart on Friday, I notice that one of our Loop salesmen, Dennis Sannito, has put out an "all points bulletin" on Cubs tickets that he'd like to get rid of for Saturday's game against the Houston Astros at Wrigley Field.

Dennis generously sells me the tickets at face value and I repair to one of my "Eastern European" haunts for a beer. But first, ingrate that I am, I call ex-fiancee No. 1 and try to get out of an 11 a.m. meeting that I had requested at the East Bank Club so she could give me a tour of the facility and treat me to lunch. She will have none of that.

So after sucking my gut in for an hour and checking out the talent on the machines, in the spinning rooms, on the pilates mats, and at the pools, sundeck, etc., we have "brunch" in the grill room. I eat a three-egg omelette - no egg whites or beaters - with chicken sausage and cheese, potatoes, toast, fruit and coffee. The only thing I don't touch, because itís so good for me, is the slice of melon which I give to my ex.

Let's see now, I've been in the health club for an hour-and-a-half and I've already gained a couple of pounds without lifting anything other than a fork. I like this club.

We stop by the office in the Mart so I can pick up my sunglasses and I bid her adieu. She's headed for the CVS pharmacy on Kinzie and I head to the second-floor 'L station.

I purchased the two tickets from Dennis because I thought I'd scrounge up some woman to go to the game with that didn't already deliver me or dump me. I'm waiting for a brown-line train that I will have to transfer from at Fullerton or Belmont for the Red Line. It's 1:26 and I realize that the only woman I could possibly talk into going with me at this stage is ex-fiancee No. 2, so I ring her. No answer.

How pathetic is this? I've got two great tickets for a surging Cubs team on a beautiful summer day in Chicago, and the best I can do is having brunch with one ex and proffering a last-minute invite to the other.

I see a couple of pretty hot looking women on the 'L, one white and one black for those of you scoring at home, and I think "What have I got to lose by asking one of them, besides two testicles and/or my life?" It's beginning to dawn on me that either I pick up some middle-aged drunk woman fast or I make a two-for-one-plus-cash ticket trade at Wrigley.

I transfer to the Red Line at Belmont and notice that last night's beers and today's omelette are having a mad-dash slalom along my lower intestines. I don't know which is clasped tighter, my hand around the 'L car support pole, or my O-ring around the chicken sausage. It's a 240-pound tug-of-war. And if anyone at Homeland Security knew what was going on they would evacuate the train and airlift the innocent to safety.

The reality of the situation is daunting. I'm going to have to use a stall at or near Wrigley Field, a rookie mistake that an aging veteran like me should never make.

Exiting the 'L station through the alley perpendicular to Sheffield Avenue, I make my way to Murphy's Bleachers. Inside the back men's room, I realize that there is a line for the one stall. After admonishing those in line about their degenerate lifestyles, I decide that the lower level bathroom at the Cubbie Bear is more to my liking and I resume my shackled-leg walk to Clark and Addison.

The only way I can possibly make it, I'm thinking, is if I actually touch second base, the pitcher's mound and home plate on my way. But after some serious Lamaze breathing I accept the fact that my only realistic option is to shuffle south on Sheffield and east on Addison.

When I get to the Cubbie Bear, after steamrolling every little Cubbie fan and pregnant woman in my wake, I enter the front door and negotiate my way through the throng of gyrating Cub fans to the lower level bathroom.

Once inside the stall, I realize that my Lamaze breathing isn't making the delivery any easier. All I know is, it's 1:52 and time is not on my side.

If time isn't on my side, the temperature is my mortal enemy. It must be 211 degrees Fahrenheit in the stall and the "water's cold, and deep too" jokes on the other side of the partition have never been more annoying. The baby is about 19 inches long and 11-1/2 pounds and I stoically give it up for adoption. I need air.

Exiting the Cubbie Bear door to the east at 2:02, I realize that ex-fiancee No. 2 has left me a message thanking me for the invitation but stating that she has to get her hair cut and colored. Apparently my Austin Powers episode in the stall obliterated the sound of the ringing cell phone.

After arriving at Bernie's at Clark and Waveland, I order a 16-ounce plastic bottled Budweiser in the beer garden and ponder my imminent ticket transaction with a clearer head. It's 2:12.

Once Bud is knocked down, I head over to Addison and Sheffield to the ticket brokers/scalpers on the building stoop adjacent to the 'L entrance. Two weeks ago to the day I let this greasy grifter shake me down for $200-and-some-bucks for two decent but not great tickets to see the Brewers pound the Cubs 13-4.

I had placed three groups of five $20 bills in different pockets of my pants so I wouldn't be seen unraveling bill after bill in front of undercover police officers or pickpockets. Watching me hand over the cash, fatso tells his accomplice, "This guy handles hundreds like I handle thousands."

"Yeah well if you're making that much cash you don't need to screw me for a baseball ticket, do ya dicksmack?"

This time around, I mention, for the record, that he lied about the face value of the tickets I got two weeks ago and asked him if he had a single upgraded ticket for the two tickets in section 222. He grabs my tickets but I won't let go lest he perform slight of hand. "I'm not goin' anywhere," he says.

"Yeah, well, this is where they are," I say pointing to the section/row/seat numbers.

"I've got a club seat, section 4, row 4, seat 101," he says. I forgot to carry my Wrigley Field seating chart that I always rip out of a phone book or print out from the Internet. My second error of the day and the game hasn't even started yet.

"O.K., I'll take it. Plus fifty bucks."

"I'll give you 30."

"Forty it is, deal."

Then we do the ticket-and-bills-tango until I verify that it is indeed for this team on this date for this seat and we both let go with one hand. Jim Hendry has nothing on me.

It's a 2:55 game because it's being broadcast by the Fox TV network. At 2:44 I pass through the turnstile-less gate at Clark and Addison and begin walking toward left field through the bowels of Wrigley. Suddenly I feel weak, disoriented, faint and panicky.

Everything's getting darker and I'm walking as if I'm drunk and my feet have fallen asleep, neither of which is true. I'm actually worried that I've had some kind of attack or stroke or something because it's like nothing I've ever felt before. I can't get any sense of equilibrium.

I start to drop to one knee but then realize that I may never be able to get up so I brace myself against a steel girder. Finally I make my way to the concession stand and order a $3 bottle of water and ask if they have an aspirin.

"There's a first-aid stand at..."

I can't even comprehend what she's saying. I'm fading fast. I'm sweating like Tom Sizemore at a sentencing hearing. Between last night's beers, today's caffeine and my isometric session at the Cubbie Bear, I'm woefully dehydrated. I guzzle the bottled water but feel no immediate relief.

I make a "Night of the Living Dead" trek to aisle 4 near the Waveland gate and walk down the ramp to the field after showing the gatekeeper my ticket. As I walk up the stairs the fresh air and sunlight miraculously reinvigorates me. I'm alive!

My aisle 4 ticket says row 4, seat 101. But where I'm at, there are no rows 1-3 and no seats 100 or 102. I'm all alone. My own seat. In my own row. Right against the bricks about 10-12 feet behind the bullpen rubbers. I'm in "Bartmanville!" "Heh beer man."

The beer vendor doesn't seem to appreciate it when I poke him in the middle of the back to get his attention. But it works. And when "Buck-A-Beer Gino" gives him his customary tip, we both decide to try to make our three-hour relationship work for the sake of the children - all named Bud.

It's a beautiful, picturesque day at the Friendly Confines as the manual scoreboard and bleachers are matted against sunny, blue skies. The only things that mar this postcard-like picture are the Under Armour ads on the Ivy walls and the browned, spotted outfield grass left over from the sacrilegious Police concerts a week ago or so.

I've got an excellent vantage point to watch Cub starter Ted Lilly warm up. He's sneaky fast but his ball looks straight as an arrow. His breaking ball is tight and everything he's throwing is at the knees. But despite the fist bumps he gives his teammates as he strolls toward the dugout, I fear it's going to be a long day against Astros ace Roy Oswalt.

At precisely 2:57 Lilly delivers to Houston leadoff hitter Chris Burke. Game on Garner.

Burke dumps a Texas-leaguer into short right field near the line and Cliff Floyd looks like Floyd-the-Barber diving after it. He misses it and the ball goes for a triple. Burke scores later in the top of the first on a ground ball by centerfielder Hunter Pence who throws like his name is, well, "Hunter Pence."

Floyd fails to answer the bell when the Cubs take the field in the second inning after straining his left shoulder. "The grass is not as thick as itís normally been," says Floyd. "I guess the concert had a little bit to do with it."

"Lee Harvey" Oswalt is perfect for the first three innings. But in the fourth, with two outs and nobody on, he begins to unravel after home-plate umpire Larry Vanover rules, errantly perhaps, that Cubs shortstop Caesar Izturis foul tipped a dropped-third strike.

Izturis singles to left and after back-to-back doubles by Derrek Lee and Aramis Ramirez, the Cubs take a 2-1 lead they never relinquish.

One inning later, Ramirez singles in Soriano and Izturis for his third and fourth RBI of the game and the rout is on.

The Cubs bat around in a four-run sixth as Alfonso Soriano, no biological or financial relation to Hector, blasts a three-run homer - his 16th - high into the left-field bleachers.

Oswalt (8-6) is pulled after just 5-1/3 innings, giving up eight earned runs. Lilly (9-4), on the other hand, pitches seven scoreless innings after the first, giving up just four hits and picking up his fifth win in his last six games.

The 9-3 win is the Cubs' 14th in their last 18 games and, at 46-43, they're temporarily three games behind the Milwaukee Brewers who entertain the Colorado Rockies at Miller Park tonight.

As Steve Goodman's "Go Cubs Go" plays over the loudspeakers and they hoist the blue-on-white "W" from atop the scoreboard for the benefit of the 'L riders, I walk out through the Waveland gate and head for Bernie's beer garden.

The woman working the pit bar in the middle of the garden is cute but, like me, could stand to drop a pound or 20. I conjure up in my mind a way we could both work off the pounds simultaneously but I suddenly remember that I'm "old and creepy." I feel a song coming on...

"Fat and tan and old cree-py,
The guy from Lake Ge-ne-va keeps stalk-ing
And as he pass-es,
Each girl he pass-es goes - EEEWWWWW!"

Hanging by myself with a beer in hand and wearing the $10 sunglasses I bought impulsively at the checkout of a Target® store on an impromptu golf ball buying binge, I think I'm flying under the radar. But suddenly I'm recognized by the Eck girls, one of whom I had just run into across the border at Mars while on vacation. I buy the girls an adult beverage in honor of their beloved deceased father, Roger, and fade into the woodwork.

Moments later, I'm nailing a Bernie's bratwurst when suddenly they reappear with their friend Tom, I think, a listener who regales me with a tale of how he won either a ticket to the Cubs' opening-day game or a trip to 'Vegas by singing karaoke in his underwear.

Before I can finish the brat he's back with his Asian wife or girlfriend or masseuse or dry cleaner (it's all a little fuzzy now) and I graciously thank them for listening to the show.

Finally I make my way back to the Red Line station on Sheffield, stopping first at Murphy's to check on the Brewers and Rockies. (If you've gotten all the way from Hi-Tops to Bernie's or the Cubbie Bear and want to return to Hi-Tops, you have to touch Murphy's on the way back. Otherwise you can be called "out.")

Milwaukee wins on a two-out bloop single in the bottom of the 10th and the Cubs trail the 'Crew once again by 3-1/2 games in the N.L. Central. But as Harry Caray would say, "The Cubbies are coming tra-la-la-la..."

At 10:37 I return to River North via the Red Line and make yet another stop in "Eastern Europe." The place isn't quite the same since our dear friend Tommy was murdered five months ago a couple of blocks away.

The bartender is a lovely girl from Latvia. But when I stop and think about the fact that she lies about her name and marital status, I'm reminded of President Reagan who warned that the Soviets would do anything - lie, cheat, steal - to get what they want and, in fact, feel a moral compulsion to do so.

I head up to Gibsons where ex-fiancee No. 2 has been celebrating her sister-in-law's 40th birthday. But as I walk past the outdoor tables on Rush I realize that I'm not really dressed for the place in my Cubbie-blue Calloway golf shirt, navy Bermuda shorts, white Ralph Lauren ankle socks, and perforated blue-suede shoes.

My final stop on my way back to the Ponderosa is at Timothy O'Toole's in Streeterville. I run into an ample germaphobic Jewish woman with a hearing disability/speech impediment whom I know from the neighborhood and offer to buy her a beer as she gets off her stool to visit the ladies' room.

When she gets back from the restroom she tells the bartender in her nasal drone, "I can't drink that." Without hesitating, the bartender calmly pours out the just opened bottle of Miller Lite® and nonchalantly opens and pours her another one.

"What's up with that?" I ask incredulously.

"You never know who could've touched it or put something in it."

"I'm sitting right here. I've been watching it the whole time," I say.

"No offense, but I don't know you or anyone else here that well. You never know."

"Yeah, well, no offense, but if I'm gonna slip a rufie into someone's drink, it sure as hell 'aint gonna be yours. Whatta you _______ nuts?"

"I'm not nuts" she says sounding like a nut underwater.

I try to regain my composure and tell her about the guy we had on the air who is marketing the "drink condom," a tamper-proof transparent sheath that fits securely over your glass while you"re away from your table or the bar, but it's no use.

Damage has been done. She's already seated at the extreme other end of the bar. That's what I get for trying to be "Gentleman Gene."

As Jack Brickhouse would say, "Here are the unhappy totals." For Gino, no runs, no hits, 3 errors, 16 beers on just 2 shots, and 910 women left on base. Gino is now 2 and 242. Time of the game 12 hours and 46 minutes. Paid attendance one. Total in the house 41,448. Stay tuned for "The 10th Inning" brought to you by Tru-Link.™ There goes one over the fence - heh heh!