Look Ma No Hands

Mark and I saw Billy Elliot last week. The good Billy Elliot, not the Asian Billy Elliot , or the Mexican Billy Elliot , or the Italian one. No, we saw the Caucasian, American Billy Elliot as god intended. You see because the part is so arduous, they have four kids playing the title role of an English boy living in a dying coal town, and we lucked out and saw it with the race appropriate Billy. Now I am all for color blind casting, but within reason. You wouldn’t cast Whoopi Goldberg to play Scarlet O’Hara in Gone With the Wind, and Britney Spears as Prissy, that just wouldn’t be right. Well maybe Britney as Prissy would be okay. Anyway, it was a great show, and the kid who played Billy was fantastic. In fact, it was so good Mark didn’t have to nudge me even once to keep me from nodding off.

Going to the theater is not one of my favorite things. Mostly I do it for Mark. Yes I enjoy it, but some of the inconveniences involved tend to put it down on my list of fun things. Half time, or intermission as they call it, is never long enough. The curtain comes down, the lights come up, and I race to the lobby where I need to make a snap decision. Do I go for the cocktail before the line gets too long, or the toilets before that line is out the door. This night I chose the toilets first.

As I scurry into the restroom there is one urinal available, which I quickly sidle up to. I don’t know if women have this problem, but I tend to be pee shy in public toilets, and if anything is out of place, everything locks down. After I unzipped and prepared to go, I noticed the guy next to me was reading a program at the urinal. It was when he stood there with one hand holding the program, and turned the page with the other hand that my urethra pinched shut, and everything was sent backwards up into my bladder. I don’t know what was going on down below, maybe he had a third hand or he was just one of those straight shooters, but I decided to go up to the bar, join the folks in line up there, and pray for a short second act.