Newsies

Mark and I saw the show Newsies last night. Other than my eternal complaint about the seats at the Broward Center being much too small for the average American, the show was very good. Let's face it, we Americans are a large people. Trying to stuff us into seats designed by some skinny guy in Denmark is close to torture. Luckily, by the time the show started, the guy who I was battling with over the armrest moved to one of the empty seats nearby. It was not a sellout.

Mark is funny. He gets nervous about going to the theater the way I get nervous about flying in an airplane. It starts the day before we are going to the show. Yesterday, when I told Mark that I had a three o'clock doctor's appointment, he nearly had a heart attack.

"Ah, ah.. we have tickets for Newsies tonight. Ahrggg... "

"Mark, it's a fifteen minute doctor's appointment."

Mark got upset because three o'clock is the time he usually starts ironing our 'going to the theater' clothes. Anyway, we went to the doctor and got home within thirty minutes, at which time Mark started fretting over dinner.

"I can't make dinner tonight. Not enough time."

"Yes, I know. We only have four hours until the show. Not nearly enough time to boil a hotdog, fry a hamburger, or microwave leftovers."

But it's a good thing that Mark doesn't want to cook dinner. Eating before going to the theater guarantees that I will fall asleep sometime during the slow song scene.

"Chinese, let's order Chinese for dinner." I offered.

It's the best thing to eat before going out. None of that overstuffed feeling, and by the time we get to the theater it'll be as if I hadn't eaten at all. Also the MSG will help keep me awake. So I called Chop Stix and ordered pork egg foo young with a side order of pot stickers. After driving up to Chop Stix to pick up the food, in rush hour traffic, Mark and I sat down to eat dinner.

"Gack! What is this shit? This is shrimp, it tastes like shit. This is frozen salad shrimp in the egg foo young. Goddamnit, pack it all back up. Were going back there."

And so we did. It was not pretty. Mark stormed into the restaurant ranting about his pork egg foo young. The woman behind the counter wasn't having any of Mark's tantrum.

"You calm down please. You want money back?"

"NO!" Mark screamed, "I want you to re-make the egg foo young with pork."

"You said shrimp on phone."

This went back and forth for a bit before the lady turned and shouted something to the cook in Chinese. Five minutes later she tossed a bag of food on the counter, "Here you food, now go away"  She then took the food we had returned and slammed it into the garbage like Michael Jordan in his prime. As we got into the car to go home, I told Mark "You're eating the part with the spit on it."