There’s a fun game we played once in a while during college. It’s called ‘I’ve never . . . ‘ and it went something like this: You say something from your past and everyone around the circle gets to guess whether it’s real or made up. Anyone who’s right gets to make one person of their choice drink. Anyone who’s wrong has to take two drinks immediately.

The game can be pretty fun whether people are sober or plastered, mainly because some of the most absurd things actually could be real. “I’ve never tried to drunkenly climb aboard a cruise ship docked in Fort Lauderdale by hiking the moorings at 3:30 a.m. after a night out with a really short Irish guy and three Cuban dudes I had never met before that night,” might be something you’d call a truth coming out of my mouth, but how likely would you believe a 103-pound chick majoring in French literature saying it? I think you get my drift on why an alright time was usually had by all.

So, for the first time in my life I can play the game and actually say this one for a truth: “I’m going to watch the Cubs in the World Series this year.”

Never in my lifetime has that been a true statement. Until now. In fact, there are literally only a couple handfuls of people I personally know who were alive the last time that was not a statement that forced people to drink heavily.

In reality, the fact that it’s true this year has also made people drink heavily.

Anyway, last week’s come-from-behind series win against the Dodgers was life altering and emotional. All week, img_2644really all through the playoffs, I was on edge while texting with my buddies — Aaron and Cliffy in Illinois, Pat in Nebraska — nightly, nit-picking our chances of the Cubs actually making it to the Series. I admit I lost faith one night, but that’s why we have group therapy, er, group texts to handle all the issues that arise. And there were plenty. But with each issue came an answer, and little by little, I think even we came to believe that they would make it. Almost believe anyway.

On Saturday when the Cubs entered the game with a 3-2 series lead, there were fewer texts than normal. Life was going. One of the guys was at an 11-year-old’s party. Another was with family for dinner. It was a typical Saturday night in October, one that didn’t require thinking about Flying the W, which makes sense because, being Cubs fans, we rarely ever have to think about that this far into the Fall. But there we were at the end of the game, texting like those 11-year-old girls, foolishly proclaiming how our lives have finally been forever altered by seeing a good Chicago team.

It’s funny that this one means so much. It’s not like we’re Cleveland or something where, until 2016, they’ve really never won anything worthwhile.

Ever.

We’ve had Super Bowl champions with Da Bears and Sweetness, and repeat 3-peat NBA champions with MJ, and gotten back to our roots in the past decade with a trifecta of hockey crowns. It’s JV league, but some fans of Chicago might even count that World Series title last decade on the South Side, although I think that’s a fine line that I’d rather not cross. Still, we’ve won real big things before in Chicago.

But, really, this event, getting this far did mean everything and so much more than those others to so many people. So much so that I’ll admit I cried when they won. I wouldn’t watch on TV after Game 3 of the NLCS, so I just listened to each game on my phone in the At Bat app, but in the top of the ninth, we turned it on to watch the final outs and I lost all words. I had no ability to control the wetness of my eye sockets once that simple double play was turned to end the game. No shame here.

And to some, it meant even more. All it took was watching the postgame following the clincher and one standout interview to understand.

Dorothy has had seats in the first row in Wrigley since 1984. She loves her Cubbies and has been through a lot watching them. She even mentioned how she wishes her brothers and father were here to see it. Alas, they’re all dead. That’s what happens to Cubs fans who want to see the Northsiders in the Series.

One brother died in the War. Yes, World War II. You know, the one that fucking ended more than six decades ago!

And the one who was a prisoner for months in said war? Gone as well. So is dad. None of them saw the Cubs win the Series, and dad was the only one around when they actually even made the Series last.

But she wouldn’t forget them in a moment like this, basking in the glory that a nation of adoring, pinstripe-loving fans heaped on her as the champagne started flowing in the clubhouse because, as she said, “This old lady is still living!”

Thank you, Dorothy. Thank you for living.

And thank you for living right.

How do we know that she, one of the biggest Cubs fans around, is living right? Well, because Ken Rosenthal earned his money that night by asking her how she was going to celebrate. She acknowledged her intent to do it the way any true red-blooded Chicagoan should.

“I’ll probably have a Jägermeister,” she said with a chuckle and a nod to the heavens that all Cubs fans unmistakably understood at that particular point in time.

That, my friends, is what makes Chicago great. People like Dorothy, who obviously, as a lover of Jägermeister, has played ‘I’ve never . . .’ more than a few times in her life.

Tell ’em who’s drinking now, Dorothy.