First and foremost, I would like to apologize for not keeping up with my blog. I have received infinite hate mail and facebook messages demanding more blogging, but since I've been extremely busy failing at figuring out what I'm supposed to be doing with my life, I've clearly been occupied. Such a perfect situation: I get to brag that you all miss my rants AND reveal to you that I'm in the midst of a full blown quarter life crisis. Win-WIN.
Anyway, for the past two months, I've been working for Stages, in the box office and ushering a few shows here and there. And before you go all, "OMFG JESSI IS WORKING AT A THEATRE AND NOT PERFORMING- WTF IS SHE DOING?!", I will tell you: finding a job performing in St. Louis is near impossible unless you are Equity or Jesus. Because these midwesterners love their Jesus. WHICH BRINGS ME TO THE TOPIC OF THIS POST:
Old People. I work for a theatre whose demographic is 90% between 65 and 100, so I constantly get to hear really awkward and exciting stories about their lives. I also get bitched out about absolutely nothing, and I get to act as a human handrail about twice a week as they hobble down the stairs that they shouldn't be walking but continue to do so because they refuse to give up their "great seats" in the center of row B.
I'm so intrigued by these people, I've done my research: I even read an article called "Have elderly people earned the right to be rude?" For those of you who care, the answer was a complicated no, but we all have to deal with it anyway.
They also never fail to leave their weird shit behind after a show. We've found candy wrappers, snotty tissues, hypodermic needles, hearing aids, and just last night someone left a bag of purple snap peas. Not kidding.
The best part is when they engage in conversation with me about the credibility and artistic merit of certain musicals. If you know anything about my taste in musicals, you'd know where these conversations are headed.
"I love Oklahoma! And MY FAIR LADY! WHEN ARE YOU GUYS GOING TO DO THE SOUND OF MUSIC AGAIN?"
A few years back, we did Full Monty, and you would have thought we'd hosted a Pro-Choice campaign on the stage:
"I've been comin' here for 30 years and never have you disappointed me so much! This is TRASH!"
We won the Kevin Kline award for it. Also, we haven't even been around thirty years. One of my favorite moments was when a little old lady called about tickets to Little Shop of Horrors, except she didn't think she'd be able to come to such a vulgar show. We didn't understand at first, and then proceeded to explain to her that it's HOR-ROR.. like.. scary, not whores.
They say that our generation is afflicted with this "entitlement" issue, but I beg to differ. Old people think they are entitled to a parade in their honor the moment they drag themselves through the door on their walkers. They ALL think they are the exception to the rule, and most of the calls we receive begin with "IM FRANCINE WALKER I AM A SENIOR AND I CAN'T DRIVE"... I wish we could have software that allows us to find people by that criteria. It would certainly take less time to get their needs met. About once a week, someone will come in and say, deadpan: "Gene died. I want to move into his subscription seats." or "Please move the person that is sitting next to my seats. They are very large/ smell bad/ of a race I do not favor." My personal favorite was the time a lady came up 5 minutes before the show was to start, leaned into the microphone and goes, "I HAVE A BLADDER INFECTION."
Sometimes they make up for their crotchety behavior. The men say the cutest things about their little old wives, including that they "found this pretty lady on the way in", and watching them all wait for their wives to get out of the restroom at intermission is one of the most adorable things I've ever seen. They're usually pretty polite when they come in all dolled up to see the show, and they always commend us for our show quality.
I guess we'll keep them. Though I do spend most of my time at work pondering that age-old question: how is that old people love musicals but hate gay people? It remains a mystery.
