Hostage

Another appropriate title for this post: Fling the tomato.

I'm in kind of a bad mood right now. But I'm trying not to be, because I'm not usually a bad mood person. It usually requires quite a few prerequisites to put me in such a dark place. 1) Lack of sleep (check), 2) Wasted money or time (check, check), 3) Unreasonable people (CHECK), 4) Gloomy weather to match (ehh, we'll check it off- it's definitely not as warm out as it's been).

The short story:
(If Justin Aubrey were here, he'd laugh at those words. But trust me- I could make stories much longer.)

Brittany and I went to set yesterday. Originally told we'd have an early day, we were a little saddened to learn 10 pm would be a more reasonable expectation. As I had an ultimate frisbee game at 9:40, this was greatly distressing. (I'd already missed the first two games of the season; we only get like 8 games total.) Then the rumor that some would get wrapped early went around. Brittany and I presented our case that, should this be true, we would like to be among the group to leave. (Usually on set there's a good split of people who want to stay and want to leave when the choice comes; usually I'm on the want to stay side, so I do not feel selfish in this action at all- sometimes you want to leave early, I'm cool when others feel that way.) So Hugh, our faithful wrangler friend, said no promises but took it into consideration.

Then Billy (name changed to protect the not-innocent) came in. And Billy chose who would leave. And Billy, knowing about our request, looked right over us and picked 8 other people. And then we protested. AND HE LAUGHED AT US, and said he's not taking requests tonight.

So basically he was an arrogant jerk, didn't ask if anybody had a preference of staying or going, wrapped several people who wanted to stay, purposely ignored the people who wanted to go, and in the process ended up picking one girl who had to wait for her ride (another extra) anyway and ended up sitting there with us not getting paid the whole time because Billy had wrapped her. While some of us sat there wanting to go.

This is where arrogance leads, my friends. Down the road of idiocy where people start putting you on their lists. Billy is now on our lists.

Here's the thing about Billy. He's usually really laid back. He's ALWAYS complaining about people in power who treat others like dirt and use their power for evil, blah blah blah. And the thing was, by not letting us go, he wasn't trying to be a jerk. I'm pretty sure he thought he was just being funny.

Ha, ha, Billy. Great joke. We all dislike you now because you let power go to your head, instead of, you know, doing things rationally.

We didn't get wrapped until two in the morning. Which was fine with me past 10:40 anyway. My game was already over. I could have stayed all night, racking up more overtime and not cared in the slightest. In fact, if that were the end of the story, I probably wouldn't be blogging it at all. Billy would have been forgotten as soon as my head hit the pillow.

However, the story picks up when my head raised from said pillow. And Brittany, from her pillow, asked if I was still parked on the street from Wednesday night. Yes, I was. It's street sweeping day. Crap.

So now I have my first parking ticket and a $35 fine to go with it. And yeah, I know technically it's my fault for not remembering it was the second Friday, but really you're not thinking about Friday when you park on the street on Wednesday. I was supposed to have gone to my frisbee game, where I would have returned late Thursday night and parked in our space in the back. But I didn't go to my game, therefore I didn't drive my car last night, therefore it was still there this morning when the street sweeping ticket enforcers were out. So, yeah, it was my responsibility and I goofed.

But Billy is still totally getting the blame.

So. Now that I feel a little bit of a catharsis after my rant, I'll list eight things related to these incidents that shall remind me how blessed I am and how a $35 donation to the city (that makes it sound better, yeah?) really isn't that big of a deal, if you think about it.

1) The fact that I have a car with the ability to get ticketed. Most people in the world don't have a car.
2) The fact that I usually have a parking space in back.
3) Clean(ish) streets.
4) The fact that parking tickets don't go on your record, so I'm still clean.
5) Getting the special treatment on set last night (we were allowed to partake of the 'snack table' which had pizza for a snack in the afternoon, and In'n'out burgers for snack at midnight.)
6) Andy, my loyal compadre, who brought me, not one coke over the course of the day, but three, to keep me properly caffeinated. And an apple to keep me nutrition-ized.
7) Getting to be on set with Alan Matthews for real this time. Up close and personal.
8) Getting to be in my first scene with under 5 background. It was nice and mellow for that forty-five minutes.

Now. About that tomato flinging. After we finally got wrapped I went and got me one of those in'n'out burgers for the road. So we're cruising down Ruffin Road on a Trent-search (don't ask), and I realize with the first bite there are tomatos on this burger. So I roll down the window and politely ask Britt if she minds if I fling the tomato onto the side of the road (because I would like to be asked before someone flung something from my truck, just in case). She says nope, and I tell her to get as close to the sidewalk as possible so I can aim for some bushes. But the bushes stop, and we're coming up on a bus stop, so I have to wait, and the lane is ending, and Brittany's yelling, "Fling the tomato!" So I do (past the bus stop), and we're good to go, until I take my second bite and discover a second tomator that must have been hidden under the first. And we repeat. Thus, the phrase, "Fling the tomato!" became extremely funny to us at 2am on Ruffin Road after a full day on set.

Sigh. I feel better now. I think I'll spend the rest of the evening catching of the last four episodes of Heroes and scrapbooking up to wazoo. I love Friday nights of three day weekends. :)