My final weekend in NYC started Saturday morning, 03/17/84. It was Saint Patrick's Day. I was so caught up in everything, I forgot the date. If I had remembered, I would have gone out and watched the Saint Patrick's Day parade. I woke up after it was over and saw a LOT of people running around wearing green and all these novelty hats.
Prior to coming to NYC, one of the shows I most wanted to see was "Noises Off." I purchased a ticket over the phone a few weeks before the trip. They were for the Saturday matinee. Dr. W would also be coming to this performance. Before I left from Eastern New Mexico University, I was discussing the play with Pad. We surmised that since it was a matinee performance, I was likely to not see the entire original cast.
Saturday afternoon, I arrived at Will Call and got my ticket. I was escorted to my seat. I was in the fifth row, but I was almost all the way over on the left side of the auditorium. I couldn't even see the entire set. I was standing there looking around and I guess my face displayed a level of disappointment. Someone nearby said, "Don't worry. There are five seats worse than yours." I opened up the program. I found I was partly right in my conversation with Pad. One of the main actors was not at that performance, but everyone else was.
After the performance got going, I completely forgot all about where I was sitting because I was laughing so hard. Since then, I've seen two other productions of the play (at ENMU and Denver) and the movie. I've laughed every single time.
I really didn't have anything planned for Saturday night. None of the shows available at the TKTS booth appealed to me, and I didn't have a lot of money left over. I saw Dr. W in his room.
Sanz' sometime boyfriend (although I think he was never again at this point because he married someone else a year later) was there visiting Dr. W. I had met him a few times before, but he graduated before I started attending ENMU. I told him about how well I had been doing in the Theatre Department that year. I mentioned how I didn't know what I wanted to do that night. He told me that a key member of the original cast of "Brighton Beach Memoirs" had returned to the show and would be on that night. I knew right away I wanted to go see that, but I would have to use my Mom's credit card to buy the ticket.
I went to the theatre (which had recently been renamed the Neil Simon Theatre). There was a really good single seat up in the balcony. I showed the cashier my Mom's credit card and the note she had written giving me permission to use the card. He said he couldn't take the card because the cardholder had to be the one to sign the slip. He said I could call the telephone ticket service (through which I had purchased my "Noises Off" tickets), buy a ticket, come back to the box office and he would exchange the ticket from the service for that really good one in the balcony.
I ran out to find a payphone. For years, I had seen situations in movies and TV in which someone really needed to use a payphone, but there was someone using it and they wouldn't get off. I'd never seen that happen in real life, UNTIL NOW. Every payphone I found had someone using them and it was pretty clear that none of them were anywhere close to ending their conversations. I came across what appeared to be a hotel. I thought I could go in there and use their payphone. These two women came out and I went in. As I passed them by, one of them said, "You don't live here, do you?" I suddenly realized I had walked into an apartment building and there were no payphones anywhere. I apologized, explained that I thought it was a hotel and walked back out the door.
I finally found a payphone, called the ticket service and gave them the number of the hotel where I was staying. The operator said they would call back in five minutes to verify the purchase of the ticket. I ran back to my hotel and waited in my room for the phone to ring. And waited. And waited. I called the ticket service back. They said they were unable to reach me at the number I gave them, so they couldn't sell me the ticket. I found out later that the problem was that Dr. W had all the rooms in his name and not in the name of those in the rooms. That's why they couldn't verify the purchase.
I went back to the theatre box office and told the guy what happened. He decided to take the risk of allowing me to commit criminal fraud and let me forge my mother's signature. I got the ticket, came back that night and thoroughly enjoyed the performance. It was definitely worth all that hassle.
Our tour group had its final hassle Sunday morning when we were supposed to leave for the airport. We all gathered in the lobby. You may recall in Part 1 that when we first arrived in NYC, there was an issue with the shuttles not being there to take us to the hotel. This time the shuttles arrived and on time, but we had a problem with the drivers. They refused to take us to the airport unless they received their tips upfront. Dr. W kept telling them that we had already paid the tip ahead of time. He had to get on the phone with the tour agent to hash it out. Somehow, they got them to agree to take us without anyone have to pay any extra money.
(With all the problems with the shuttles at the airport and the hotel, and us not getting to see "Cats" as originally promised, Dr. W declined to hire the tour agent for his 1985 trip. He said the agent begged him not to do that, but Dr. W, who was a very patient man, had reached his limits.)
The trip home was, thankfully, non-eventful. I rode home with the graduate student I rode up with. We talked about our experiences the whole way back to ENMU.
This was the only time in college that I got to experience a real spring break vacation. I know everybody else likes to go to Florida, but from what I had seen of Spring Break on MTV, if you weren't getting drunk and having sex all week, you just weren't having fun. I really didn't see the point in all that. I'm glad I got to go to NYC, but I have no idea if I'll ever get to go back.
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