New York Minute and a Half


Hello fellow travelers. I'm here with another New York update. I've only got a few secticles to converse, so I'll keep it short and suh-weeet.

We've been wandering New York by-and-by, but mainly here to watch shows... of which we've seen five. Well, I've seen four: Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (which was cool and funny), RENT (which was $20), The Wedding Singer twice (which freakin' rocks), and Wicked (which is always crowd pleasing). Timotei and Samantha Wu saw Avenue Q. I'll get more in-depth regarding the shows later (and with photos to boot).

But for now, I've got a story to tell. So I went alone to see The Wedding Singer again today and sat next to this elderly couple. The woman immediately started talking with me. I was sitting there in my new Wedding Singer shirt having paid the student price to get in (using my old University ID). The first thing she asked was how much I paid for the tickets. I told her that I am a student and I paid the discounted price. Because I hate telling people beforehand my opinion on something (fearful that they'll have a differing opinion), I gave her the impression that I was seeing the show for the first time.

She asked where I was from and I replied "California." Turns out she was also from California. She told me that she was from the city that my old University was located and I replied, "Oh wow! I got my undergrad there!" At this point, I prayed that she wouldn't ask where I went to school currently (having told her that I got the student discount).

Of course, that happened to be the next question out of her mouth, to which I hesitated to respond, like an idiot.

"Well... well... well," I stammered.
"You don't even know the name of your school?" she replied.
"No no, it's just that," I said, thinking slowly, "it's such a small school that it wouldn't matter if I said."
She looked at me suspiciously. I knew that if I didn't respond with a name, she'd know I was lying. So I muttered...
"Dupont."

I was struggling to remember what college a co-worker buddy went to. It was an obscure college that I had never heard of (yet they had a football team and my "big" university didn't). Luckily, she didn't follow up on Dupont University (which, if you look it up, was used as a joke name school referring to Duke).

But on went the conversation in this everlasting pre-show period. She asked what I was getting my masters in and I blurted out "Masters in Education," taking the identity of Shallow Val (my old high school friend). "I want to be a teacher," I said.

Her face lit up. "I used to be a teacher!"

I knew at this point that these lies, which started out fun, would be the death of me. I needed to change the subject, so I diverted attention to what her vacation plans were. I'm such a sly devil.

The show started and quickly lead to intermission where her husband retreated to the restroom leaving us to carry on our conversation. She asked me what I thought of the show and I said that I loved it, all the while hiding the back of my shirt which would clearly give away that I had seen the show already. I had hoped that she was a little hard of seeing and wouldn't notice my shirt at all, but that hope was thrashed after she laughed at a pun during the show in which the small license plate of a car read "XMAS BONUS."

Conversation led to the revitalization of Los Angeles and her having bought a new [expensive] apartment in the Financial District because she hated to drive in and out of the city. Metro trains came into the conversation and I had to bite my tongue on the fact that I take it into LA every morning.

We also talked about what kind of music my parents listened to. I really have no idea what my parents were into. She seemed to think my parents would be around sixty, but I lied again (I guess I hadn't had enough) and said they were in their 40s. After doing the math in her head, and me too hoping I hadn't goofed, she conceded to the possibility that they were forty-somethings and moved along.

After all this, I just wanted to get out of there. The lady even offered me some M&M's (which she loudly opened during the soft romantic ballad of the show). When the show ended, she gave me some parting words about Carnegie Hall and I wished them well and ran the hell outta there. I'm sure by now, they've looked up Dupont University (or lack thereof) to find that the boy they'd been chatting with was a compulsive liar. But that's just the way it works around me. I guess I just have to make things more difficult. But man, can you imagine if I told her that I wasn't actually a student anymore, and was still wrongfully getting student discounts??? The horror!


Giving them what they want,

Ricky
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