On Rahm Emanuel and my inability to be cool

I work at an independent movie theater in DC and, as such, have had the opportunity to meet/see various fame-like people. It's cool for me since I grew up in a town where, when I tell people where I'm from, I usually have to add an addendum to the end saying "No, yeah, it's cool you've never heard of it. No one's heard of it! Unless you live in the next town over... which no one as heard of either. Or unless you read that thing in the Post once, uh, the thing about the race fight? Yeah, that was us! Oh man, it was nuts. I mean, there are like NO black people and it was weird that there would be an entire fight...No, I'm not racist, just, uh, my town... hey, where are you going?"

Such is life when you're from "real" America.


Anyway, the most famous person to ever come to our town was Colin Powell before that whole unfortunate Iraq-War-ruining-his-life thing, and I'm pretty sure he had no idea where he even was. He just kind of wandered onto the football field, gave a little speech, and wandered off again. I like to imagine he had been ambushed by our school's principal, thrown into the back of a truck, and then told to "speech his ass off." What's sad is that years later one of our local TV news guys came along to talk about not drinking alcohol and I'm pretty sure everyone was more excited. Poor Colin Powell... he never could catch a break.

So as you can probably infer, I'm consequently terrible at meeting famous people. Terrible. I'm this weird, shaky Chihuahua girl, muttering things about "wow, that, uh, that-that thing you did once? So cool" in a high-pitched voice, face bright-red and eyes watering. It doesn't help that at the theater I'm doing glamorous work like warming up hot dogs in microwaves or picking up sticky beer cups. I walked by the director of Napoleon Dynamite the other day and debated breaking my code of "don't talk to famous people because you're too awkward for reality" because, hey, it's not like my usual problem of thinking "OMG THE TV PERSON IS LOOKING BACK AT ME WHAT???" obsessively would be in play. Therefore talking to the director wouldn't be an issue because, hey, I'd never seen him before. I could be easy breezy.

I then glanced down at the trashcan I was wheeling, my knees covered in popcorn residue, and registered that I smelled faintly of trash and broken dreams. I sighed and wheeled on, deciding that talking to the Big Director Man might not be smart whilst looking like a crazy janitor.


About a week ago, we were opening a couple of popular movies and the theater was PACKED. I was the official ticket taker (or THE GATEKEEPER as I alone call it) and was attempting to usher people through the tiny aisle of space leading back to the theaters. There were about 900 people for one set alone and it was nuts – people milling all around, demanding to know why I wouldn't let them into theaters where the last movie hadn't even gotten out yet, asking my permission to use the bathroom, yelling at me for providing them with only one bathroom, asking me to hold tickets (I can't), and then getting mad at me because I wouldn't.


So I'm letting people through, breathlessly telling them "uhhhhh theater 4, down the hall, to your right, theater 5, go that way, wait, you need your stub!" when a short man approached me and handed me his ticket. "Hello!" he said.

"Yeah, hi, theater 4, halfway down the hall," was my reply, barely looking at him as I ripped his ticket and rushed him through, almost missing the sad look that crossed his face. His very familiar face.

I paused for a second as I continued to usher people through. That man bore an uncanny resemblance to Rahm Emanuel, I thought to myself.

"That dude looked like Rahm Emanuel," I remarked to one of my coworkers.

"Who?"


I proceeded to tell him about how Rahm was the Chief of Staff and had many instances of yelling at republicans and sent a dead fish to a pollster and had cut off part of his finger at an Arby's once. I was nonplussed by my coworker's sudden look of "uh oh, nerd alert"; I'm pretty used to that.

Once the movie ended and the huge crowd was filing out, I once again saw the man walk past me.

"Holy balls," I said (far too loudly), "oh my God, I really think that's Rahm f%&ing* Emanuel!"

At that, an older lady turned around and mouthed "it is!" at me, her face alight in excitement. We exchanged a look of pure delight as my coworker continued to look on, perplexed.



So that's how I met Rahm Emanuel – by first ignoring him, being kind of rude, and then yelling an expletive upon seeing him again. I truly handle situations with finesse.









*Note: I'm trying to keep this blog sort of family-friendly. This effort will most likely degenerate and fall apart as the days go by, much like a poorly made soufflé. Or my college career.

Behold Your Future Boss

This is what I imagine a young Sheldon Cooper would be like, only as an aspiring political God rather than a future evil scientist.

Basically, I would give my firstborn to have my second kid be anywhere near as awesome, hilarious and serious as this one.

Welcome

If you're here, that probably means you can read. So kudos, weary internet traveler! You already have one up on 26% of the world's population. Be proud. Go to some impoverished nation and gloat. A public school in the United States would work as well.



So this is basically my attempt to chronicle my unimpressive life. Prepare to be astounded.