No Excuses

Dude, I suck. Well, some of you knew that already, but seriously bro I’m a total loser. Two months! It’s been TWO MONTHS since I’ve been able to sit down in front of my computer and put together a Shawn Story worthy of my readers’ time. While I would love to come up with some fantastic excuse (like Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire finally came out of their closets and we had two months of trans-global three ways as we bounced to and from Spider man premieres) but sadly neither that, nor any other reason I could come up with could pardon my absence from the blogosphere. All I can say is I’ve been living the Shawn Story to end all Shawn Stories, and while I’d love to regale you all with it, I’m afraid I’m just a little too bitter about everything right now to objectively, and humorously, share it with you. Someday I’ll put it all down in an incredibly long entry, but for now I have to forgo that little missive until such time as I can think about it without getting angry. In the meantime, a quick update.

My dvr is… WORKING! Even on weekends! I can hardly believe it myself, but so far there’s been almost six uninterrupted weeks of television viewing pleasure. My teeth are… still screwed up. The gum by our old friend Molar #2 decided to grow over the crown rather than around it and that created a food trap bigger than Oprah. It quickly became infected, so I had to have emergency gum surgery. (The words emergency, gum and surgery should never be in the same sentence together.) There is nothing quite like sitting in a dental chair and hearing the pleasant “whheeer” of the drill all the while knowing it’s shredding your gumline to pieces.

Other than that, hold onto your seats because I actually have some good news for once. With the exception $1,000, I am officially debt free, and that will be taken care of with my fiscal year end bonus. I’d like to use that for an actual vacation (Phoenix anyone?!) but I will finally be free of the burden I’ve been carrying for six years and that will be a vacation in and of itself. And, in March I got a big, fat freakin raise so I decided that it was time for my ushering gig to come to an end. Not only am I excited to have my weekends back, but I am overjoyed to put a little space between the ex’s world and mine. Christ, there were pictures of him hanging up in the theatre; it was more than any normal person could bear and I’m glad to be done with it.

In other news, I’m kinda/sorta seeing a boy. He’s a total hottie, but he and his friends read my blog so I can’t say too much about him lest he learn all my dirty secrets. I will say that my friends who have met him or seen me with him are baffled at how disgustingly romantic we are. “Nauseating,” “barf inducing” and “sickeningly sweet” are just some of the colorful adjectives used to describe us. Who knew that despite everything that has happened over the past year I still had an affectionate bone left in my body? (Shut it dirty minds.) But that’s all I’m going to say about it, except that if he’s reading this GET A MYSPACE PAGE already so I can show people what you look like!

So campers, you are now completely up to date. See how quickly I can encapsulate two months? Hopefully that will be the longest stretch between entries, but I have a serious travel bug that needs some taking care of so I may be off to who knows where sometime soon.

In honor of the end of my ushering days I’d like to share with you my two favorite Shawn Ushering Stories. As I’m sure we all remember from our high school/college days, the service industry is a miserable existence. Whether it’s retail, fast food or waiting tables, people treat you like crap. The same can be said for the cultured masses who attend Broadway, only they’ve paid $100 or more for their ticket and they’re going to be damn sure you know it.

When I first started ushering, I was at a blissfully short show called Doubt. This show was a four person play that took place in a parochial school, so all in all it was very conversational and very, very quiet. On day one of my ushering gig, as I was nervously escorting patrons to their seats and fielding the same two questions over and over (where are the bathrooms and what time does the show let out), whom should I happen to seat but my former dentist, Dr. Thaw. (You may recall my having mentioned Dr. Thaw previously. I still swear, that is her real name.) My molar #2 would not be where it is today if it weren’t for sweet Dr. Thaw, and she holds a special place in my heart, but despite that I politely showed her to her seat and went on with my ushering duties.

The lights dimmed, the show started and I plopped down with my gameboy for an hour and a half of video game bliss. Two minutes later, Dr. Thaw runs to the back of the house holding her stomach and says to me “I need a bathroom. Fast.” I point her in the direction of the women’s room, which is unfortunately for her all the way across the theatre. I have to give her credit, she tried to make it on time. But alas, she did not. Just as the audience was settling in to the cadence of the show, a not so subtle “Blehhhggccchh” rang out from the last row. Luckily, she managed to avoid hitting anyone else with her projectile vomit, but there was what appeared to be the remains of a pasta dish on the floor, and the acrid smell we all know and love emanating throughout the theatre. She ralfed a couple more times, then made to the women’s room, where she sat for the rest of the very, very quiet show, barfing every few minutes. I called her the next morning to make sure she was still alive, and I was surprised to hear her as chipper as ever. “Bad fish” she says to me, and then has the chutzpah to say “You’re due for a cleaning.” As if.

Sadly, Doubt closed and I moved on to a show that I’m not allowed to name because my office is now representing the tour, but it was a horrible piece of theatre that I had to endure for many, many months. It got particularly bad when a certain American Idol loser joined the cast. Every piece of South Jersey trash decided to trek into the city to see their favorite long-haired reality show reject, and I could start a whole new blog with the stunts they pulled. But my absolute favorite was a family of four I like to call The TransFatties. Now before you all pinky commies start shouting “WEIGHTIST!” at me, the TransFatties redefined the gluttonous American we all have come to know and love. I’m sorry, but they were really, really… out of shape and had obviously spent way too much time enjoying Costco’s free samples. Just to be clear, I don’t begrudge someone their right to eat as much as they want, but there is a time and a place for everything, and no matter how overweight you may be, you cannot honestly believe that a Broadway theatre is an appropriate venue for you to whip out your bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

And yet, there they were, ensconced in their seats and chowing down on some Colonel Sanders. Surprisingly, they were shocked… SHOCKED I tell you… to learn that not only were they not allowed to consume their finger lickin good snacks, but that they ALSO weren’t allowed to even have food IN the theatre. Mr. TransFatty, blustered out some line about how he guessed things were different in “the city,” and went to throw his chicken away. Never one to waste food, Mrs. TransFatty had the nerve to ask if I could hold the food for her so that they could pick it up on the way out. I was on the early shift that day and as far as I was concerned whatever happened after I left wasn’t my problem, so I told Mrs. TransFatty that the usher Mary who reads tickets at the door would have it waiting for them. Poor Mary is 100 or so years old and can’t walk, and to this day I don’t know how it turned out, but something tells me she ate every last piece of that fried goodness.

Well readers, I could go on and on… seriously, I could… but like every good fashionista I know less is more. Until next time, I hope you all are enjoying your springtime weather and that you eat your KFC in the privacy of your own home.