MIAMI – When I was in elementary school, one of my favorite picture books was "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day." I am not really sure why I enjoyed reading about this poor child's troubles and how each minute seemed to get worse and worse for this first grader, but I did. Maybe it was because at the end of Alexander's sucky day something good happens and all his troubles melt away.

Who would have thought that Super Bowl Sunday would have been my very own version of that book.

First of all, I was going to Miami. Somehow my dad's Chicago Bears season tickets had been a couple of the lucky 17.5 percent to be selected to go to the Super Bowl.

Fast-forward to Super Bowl Sunday. I wake up to overcast skies and drizzle. Whatever. It was 70 degrees warmer than Milwaukee and I was wearing a T-shirt and shorts, watching the palmettos sway.

Now it was time to go to the game. I'd waited all season for this. We approached Dolphin Stadium. The place was a madhouse. Jesus freaks, scalpers, vendors of all sorts, Hoosiers and drunks were everywhere. Finally we reached the queue to get into the stadium complex. As my dad and I rounded a bend in the line, he looked at me with a horror-stricken face.

"The tickets are gone."

My stomach dropped and my lunch was about to grace the Peyton Manning jersey in front of me. Someone had pick-pocketed my dad. I assumed Tank Johnson's posse was back in Chicago, so who was working the crowd?

We flagged down a Miami "cop" wearing shorts entirely too short (then again, who am I kidding, this is South Florida) and riding a bicycle as he "patrolled" the crowd. He told us we could walk to the other side of the stadium to ticket resolution.

I hated Miami. I hated whoever bought MY ticket from the scalper. How was I going to write a column about the Super Bowl if I couldn't even watch the game?

The sky was clouding over even more, rain was imminent and I was standing on the deck of the NFL trailer with a dozen other people who had had their pockets picked, or had bought counterfeit tickets. Everyone had been victimized at the same spot we had.

"Yeah we've been having this problem all day," were the chilling words from an NFL official at ticket resolution.

Time was passing; the humidity had frizzed my hair to Barbarella proportions. There was some hick playing the banjo. Would I be able to see the Piano Man sing the national anthem?

After a few minutes, or 45, Dad walked out of the trailer.

"What happened?"

"I got tickets," he whispered as we whisked past a strew of already dejected Bears fans.

Granted, we had to pay face value for new tickets, the last two the NFL made available.

Vendors selling $10 beers greeted us as we made our way into the stadium and up to our seats. The corner of the Bears end zone. Not bad, but I still wanted to pull a Tonya Harding on whoever had my original ticket.

The Bears win the toss, Devin Hester runs the first kick for a touchdown. The place goes nuts. It became pretty apparent that there were more Bears fans than Colts fans – even Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore (sitting in the stands) were wearing Bears apparel.

The rain starts. We put our ponchos on. The Colts score. The Bears score.

I sit through a ridiculous halftime performance by Prince. And as he sings "Purple Rain," The Artist Formerly Known As . calms the torrential downpour that had soaked us to the bone.

I'll spare you dear readers from detailing the second half of the game, but I will say I was glad my Rex Grossman jersey was hidden underneath my jacket and poncho.

I wake up Monday morning and realize that all of this wasn't a bad dream. That we had paid double for tickets to go to a game that made me sort of wish (but not really) that I was watching the commercials in frigid Milwaukee.

My dad has a revelation, something about not signing a receipt at ticket resolution. He calls the credit card company and we discover the NFL didn't charge us for the new tickets. At last, some retribution to make us feel a little better about heartbreak.

Now as I'm writing this, we realize the travel agent booked our airline tickets home for March 5, not Monday. I am stuck in Florida for an extra day. What a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day indeed. But I'm in Miami. It's 68 degrees and I'm sitting outside. Alexander would be proud.