Drinks are on me

You’ve heard the phrase, “The drinks are on me?” Well they were the other day, quite literally and I suppose you could blame it on a runaway crayon but let’s start at the beginning.

Back in May when

I went to the Emmy Awards in New York City my wife tagged along and we tried to jam a bunch of fun stuff into a few hours. We had a wonderful cheeseburger at the Hard Rock Café, I got a hot shave from an old school barber, we said a quick prayer at St. Patrick’s Cathedral and we took a long walk around Central Park. My wife wanted to see a Broadway show as well but there wasn’t time. Ever since she’s wished we could go back so last Sunday we did.

Being a cheap skate I like to buy my tickets at the halfoff Tix booth. If you’ve never heard of it; almost all of the shows, with the exception of the biggest hits, release tickets the day of the show and sell them at 50% off face value. They figure it’s better to lose a little money and play to a full house than stick to their guns and have the performers looking out at empty seats. Most of the shows I’ve seen over the last 30 years were purchased this way. In fact I saw “RENT” at least a half dozen times with Tix tickets.

I had my wife look at the Tix website before we left to see what was up for grabs and she was excited to see a musical called “Waitress”, based on the movie of the same name with music written by the talented Sara Bareilles, on sale. The Tix booth opened at 11 a. m. so we timed it perfectly driving down so we’d be first in line. Little did I know when we arrived at 10: 45 a. m. there were already 250 people in line ahead of us. Not to worry we waited our turn, the line moved quickly and I scored seats that were third row center at half the normal price. Tickets secure, time for lunch.

My wife wanted that cheeseburger at the Hard Rock Café again so we walked over, grabbed a table and ordered some drinks. I should mention my sister- in- law and her son tagged along for the trip and this is where the runaway crayon comes in. When we sat the waitress handed my nephew a sheet of paper to color and a small box of crayons. Instead of coloring some cartoon characters on the paper he asked me to play tic tac toe with him. When the waitress brought us our drinks she took the 20 ounce Goose Island IPA I ordered and placed the drink directly on a crayon that was laying on the table. When she let the glass go it tipped over dumping the entire beer directly into my lap.

The waitress gave me a look that said, “I can’t believe I just did that and now you’re about to scream at me and I’ll probably lose my job.” I just stood up and told her I needed napkins. She apologized profusely over and over again but in moments like this I remember that I used to bus the tables at the Turf Inn on Wolf road and waiting on customers can be a pretty thankless job. I told her it would be alright but she insisted she get the manager.

The bossman looked at my pants and said we need to get you out of those and I told him I wasn’t that kind of boy. He then told me to follow him to the gift shop where he would give me a free pair of Hard Rock Café sweatpants. Everyone at the table thought that was a great idea but I said, “I’m sitting third row, dead center, at a Broadway show. I’m not wearing sweats.” For some reason at that moment I thought it would be classier to be in soaking wet clothes smelling like last call at a bar in Vegas. Although if we’re being brutally honest I don’t think any man should wear pants with the words “hard” and “rock” printed on them.

Anyway, after saying no to the sweats the manager insisted he buy our lunch which turned out to be a pretty penny. I still tipped the waitress 22% just because and made sure she didn’t get fired. After lunch we made our stop at St. Patrick’s Cathedral where I lit a candle and said a silent prayer to Saint Solvent, the patron saint of dry cleaners. We then walked around Central Park for an hour and a half which miraculously dried my pants ( see prayer works).

The show was wonderful although it did strike me as funny that I was seeing a show about a waitress who is having a bad life when only three hours earlier I met a waitress who was having a bad day. In the end I think they both turned out OK.