Bears Idonije Gives Rookies A Scare With $38K Restaurant Tab

By Anthony Todd in Food on Oct 10, 2012 8:20PM

The difference between professional football players/millionaires and us: If we were presented with a $38,000 restaurant bill, we'd either die of shock or contemplate suicide. Since there are no reports of dead sports figures in this morning's news, we presume the two Bears rookie players that Israel Idonije pranked with this bill took it better than we would have.

USA Today reports Idonije tweeted a picture of a bill (actually for $38,091) from Mastro's Steakhouse with the comment "Tonight's Gonna be a Good Night!!! #rookienight." This morning, Idonije, who happens to be a backer of recently-evicted South Loop restaurant Alain's, admitted that the bill was not the result of a night of intense excess. Instead, it was just a joke.

"Alright! That Bill was NOT real! It's was a Hilarious joke on our 2 Rookies," tweeted Idonije The bill included a charge for "Bears Dinner (3@9999)." Here's the thing - if you subtract the line item for the joke from the pre-tax total, the dinner still cost more than $4000. If there weren't any other jokes on the bill, they must have drunk some pretty darn good wine. Guess if that's what you're used to, it makes the shock of this sort of joke more amusing than horrifying.