Mike Montgomery was standing in a Target checkout line in Southern California when he saw himself on the cover of Time magazine's year-in-review special, right in between photos of Prince and Beyonce.
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton took up one top corner, while Muhammad Ali standing over Sonny Liston and an image from Hurricane Matthew framed the bottom. There was Montgomery — a lefty swingman who had been traded three times — near the center of the Time cover and in the middle of the final-out celebration shot from an unforgettable World Series Game 7.
"Oh yeah, I got a couple," Montgomery said. "I grabbed like four or five of 'em, just because I thought that was pretty cool.
"We're everywhere, man. You can't get rid of us."
How do you turn the page when you're on the cover of national magazines? Maybe at some point, the Cubs will move beyond existential questions about their ultimate legacy and newfound celebrity, hard-hitting stuff like Sports Illustrated asking: "How Perfect is Kris Bryant?"
Raising the World Series banner next to Wrigley Field's iconic scoreboard — and trying on 14-karat white gold jewelry during Wednesday night's ring ceremony — symbolized the end of the victory lap and the beginning of the rest of the 2017 season. It started with a 2-0 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers in front of 40,844. But in so many different ways, the Cubs also realize that their lives will never be the same again.
Like how Anthony Rizzo didn't miss a beat when he reported for spring training and a reporter asked how he wound up on the red carpet at the Grammys.
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"World Series champion," Rizzo said.
But this phenomenon isn't only limited to All-Star/Gold Glove/face-of-the-franchise players. It goes for the animated reliever with the tilted-hat look and chest-pounding celebrations.
"I can't hide no more," Pedro Strop said. "People know who I am. It's awesome to see our fans happy, to see them smiling. If you go to a restaurant and you want to be chill with your family, your wife, kids, it's not happening. Now everybody just knows you."
Cubs fans knew all about Bryant and viewed him as a franchise savior from the moment he got drafted with the No. 2 overall pick in 2013. After Bryant mentioned his wedding registries on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!," boxes from Crate & Barrel and Bed Bath & Beyond started piling up at his parents' Las Vegas home.
"That was probably one of the smartest moves out of any player this offseason," colorful reliever Justin Grimm said. "Good for him. I should have waited another year (to get married) and said something. I might have got a couple gifts, you know what I mean?
"But that's awesome. The fans wanted to take care of him. He gave them a pretty special moment in time, so they're giving back to him."
Grimm delayed his honeymoon and noticed the difference while trying to decompress at the Four Seasons Resort Bora Bora.
"I don't know if it was the front desk telling them," Grimm said, "or if they found out through social media and they happened to be there, but I had people yelling 'Go Cubs!' at me while I'm drinking with my wife on the beach. I won't say hammered, but I'm on the beach, in Bora Bora, just loving life and I hear: 'Go Cubs!'"
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First base coach Brandon Hyde, whose family lives year-round in Evanston, kept hearing it from strangers at restaurants and grocery stores.
"You heard it was going to be a huge deal," Hyde said. "Living there, you know it's going to be a huge deal. But I didn't truly understand how a big of a deal it was (until) I had people coming up to me who I didn't know telling me their stories about how they went to their grandfather's grave.
"They wanted to tell me these old family stories and how much it meant to them. Those (moments) would kind of catch me off-guard, like: 'Wow, what did we just do?'
"Everywhere I went, everybody wanted to say congratulations. Everybody wanted to say how happy they were and wanted to tell me where they were at the time — and wanted to tell me how stressed out they were in the seventh game.
"I truly underestimated the historical part of what it meant to so many people and their families — and there are generations of families. It was really cool to have something special to share and to be a part of something that made people feel so good."
In another surreal, only-in-Chicago moment, fans swarmed Ben Zobrist's North Center home after the team returned from Cleveland in early November. The World Series MVP was outside playing with his children when some neighborhood kids stopped by and asked for autographs and it mushroomed from there.
"The biggest thing that stuck out to me was how that championship really connected families," said Zobrist, who grew up in downstate Illinois. "For so many people, it was almost like a reunion of sorts, and even with loved ones that have gone before. It's just a remembrance of times in the past where they had always hoped together that the Cubs would win.
"So for it to finally happen, I think it was a family experience. You realize that it's not really about us. It's about families experiencing life together and enjoying the entertainment of watching Cubs baseball together. For them, it's family time."
That's why reliever Carl Edwards Jr. keeps getting this reaction from Cubs fans: "The first thing they say is 'thank you.'"
"It's pretty special to see," Kyle Hendricks said, "because most fans that come up you would think they're wanting something. But even in Chicago, everywhere I went, you heard like different stories from people and they just wanted to say thank you.
"They were all unique and specific to them, but they all kind of were the same stories, just where they were or something about their grandfather. It's really cool."
That's why Hendricks will have to change up his Wrigleyville routine after winning an ERA title, becoming a Cy Young Award finalist and starting that World Series Game 7.
"It's literally everywhere," Hendricks said. "I was in California, Arizona, Hawaii — it was just Cubs fans everywhere. I'm very inconspicuous. I don't really have that look. So it went from one year walking to the field back and forth every day, to now I don't think I can do that much anymore. In one year, man, a lot has changed. It's crazy."