Sunday, May 13, 2012

Would you consider being my mother?

Fun story! So, my friend and my partner and I had tickets to a reading by Alison Bechdel for her new book, Are You My Mother? I was fairly excited because I've loved just about everything she's ever done and I was pretty happy this new book had come out. I even suddenly got up and left my job without even checking what time it was (turns out I left a half hour before my shift should have been over), just yelling some instructions haphazardedly (not a word?) at a confused staff member as I ran out the door. I got to the event an hour before the time printed on the ticket (see - I was being careful because it didn't say if the printed time was when the doors opened or when the event started) and at first was excited because when I arrived, there wasn't a huge long line snaking around the entire block that I would have to wait in. But then stuff started to feel kind of wrong. People were slowly shuffling out of the building, holding books, and squinting at the bright sunlight as if they'd been in a dark theater for an hour or so. I walked into the theater very slowly, looking obviously confused, and no one asked for my ticket or asked what the hell I thought I was doing. I started feeling scared and tried to find a poster for the event that could tell me what was going on. Finally, I walked up to a guy behind the bar inside and showed him my ticket and said, "This is what my ticket says, but obviously I am at an event that just ended. What?" So, after about seven different employees looked at my ticket, it turns out that my ticket, along with five others, was printed with a time that was two hours after the actual event time. They ended up refunding the tickets, letting us keep copies of the book, asking Alison Bechdel if she could stay a little later for the poor fools who just arrived, and handed me a huge pile of free tickets and a free beer. It was way better than if I had been at the reading, because most likely I would not have stayed to talk to Bechdel and ask her to sign my book, since I never do that. I always feel like I'm just bothering the author or celebrity and have nothing to say that would be of interest, so why not just leave them alone? Anyway, this time, I actually waited in line, yammered at Alison Bechdel for quite a while (I should send her a thank you card for enduring my rambling monologue about artist's block and depression and how she was my hero), got my book signed, and even got a photo.