My Fair Lazy - Jen Lancaster [94]
“No,” he responds. “But that’s my seat.”
What is this, second grade? “Oh, I apologize; I didn’t realize there were assigned seats for the third show,” I say, knowing damn well there aren’t. I turn rather obviously to glance at all the empty chairs to my right. Then I return my attention to my BlackBerry—Oh, no! Not the frog statue!—while he continues to hover and glare. I can see Stacey concentrating intently on the playbill.
Mr. Homeless clears his throat and ups his glower factor.
I ignore him.
He does not sit in any of the empty chairs next to us, all of which have a better vantage point due to being closer to the center of the stage. He simply stands, anxiously shifting his weight from one leg to the other.
Dude . . . rude much?
I realize this man is not going to give up, so I finally ask, “Do you need me to move?”
“Yes, please.”
Seriously? I glance down at Stacey, who’s now trying to cover her laughter by coughing. Wait, I thought I was supposed to be the bad wingman? I scoot over a seat and the man plops down between us. Then I make a point of having a conversation around him for the next fifteen minutes until the play starts.
When Ski Dubai begins, I forget the petty turf war and pay attention to the stage. The only bit of set is a large piece of Samsonite luggage, which is used not only to haul clothes, but also as a bed, a shopping cart, and a desk. There’s a dreamy, almost surreal element to this production, and between key scenes, a woman walks the length of the stage carrying a huge photograph of Dubai at night, studded with hundreds of tiny LED lights.
Even though there’s literally nothing onstage but a bag, the writing and acting are such that I can imagine the oppressive desert wind of Dubai and also the cold crunch of snow in the indoor ski slope. I spend an hour and a half completely immersed on the other side of the world. I find myself being glad for the empty stage, as any scenery might have interfered with my imagination.
When it’s over we rush to the garage to avoid the postshow traffic jam. “Hey, what was with the creepy homeless guy who insisted he sit between us?” I ask. Stacey looks as though she’s dying to tell me something, but simply holds up a finger and doesn’t say a thing until we’re in her car with the doors closed before she bursts out laughing.
“He’s not homeless!” she snorts, slapping her hand on the steering wheel, trying to catch her breath.
“Then who was he?”
Still laughing, Stacey sputters, “He’s the theater critic for—” and then she drops the name of a great big newspaper.
“Oh . . . so that’s why you didn’t tell him to pound sand when he was trying to bully me out of my seat.”
“Exactly.”
“Hmph,” I snort. “You know what? Maybe Mr. CriticPants should spend a little less time analyzing what everyone else does wrong and a little more time figuring out how to come across as less of an asshole.”
Wait a minute, that? Right there? May just be my thesis statement.
Earlier this week, Fletch and I were at the bookstore, stocking up on beach reads for the Hamptons. When we passed a poetry display, he gestured toward the stack and asked, “You need any of those for your project?”
I replied, “No freaking way.”
“Really? You’ve been complaining about wanting new cultural activities. Seems like if you drank wine, read poetry, and listened to classical music in one sitting, you’d hit the high-culture trifecta. You could even do all of it poolside.”
I pondered this for a second before replying. “You’re probably right, but I can’t bring myself to read poetry. Something about it gives me a primal urge to beat up the author and steal his lunch money.”
To backtrack, I haven’t been exposed to any classic poems since my twelfth-grade English class. I detested the poetry portion of the semester and didn’t see the point of agonizing over every verse, talking each line to death as we dissected meanings. I could pretty much sum up every poem we ever read in one of four ways:
a. Love is rad.
b. I am sad.
c. I feel mad.
d. War is bad.
Done. Now, let