City Perks

Living in a rather large city definitely has its benefits. Lots of shopping, restaurants, entertainment, colleges, sports teams and places to work. Some of the non-permanent benefits include the occasional concert, traveling plays and musicals, prominent speakers, and presidential visits (especially during election years). And once in a rare while, big-name celebrities will come here to work on films. Most recently Lindsay Lohan, Kevin Kline, Meryl Streep, Lily Tomlin and Woody Harrelson spent several weeks in St. Paul for a feature film on Garrison Keillor. This past winter Mr. Harrelson, Sissy Spacek and Charlize Theron spent about the same amount of time on a film in Northern MN. Today was my first witness of a celebrity in downtown Minneapolis. And might I say that if all the following encounters are like this one, I'll take a definite pass on rubbing elbows with any of them again.

When getting ready to head out the door for work every weekday, I happen to listen to a local popular radio station that has a hilarious morning show. Yes, sometimes it can be a little crude, but most of it is in good taste. Their annual april fool's day pranks on listeners are enough to get you hooked. Today I was about to head out the door when one of the radio personalities announced that they were about to give out 3rd row tickets to a big-name concert this weekend. The only way someone could win them today was if their intern, Crisco, happened to talk with you and proposition you to do something in return for the tickets.

Well, today happened to be the day when Crisco was walking downtown, about 4 blocks from my apartment building. What was his offered proposition to any taker? In order to get these tickets, you had to pee yourself. See, apparently in some southern state very recently, this electronics store had a tremendous sale of 4-year old MAC laptops for $50. Obviously a stampede ensued so one woman had a brilliant idea that she could save her spot in line if she wet herself. So why wouldn't this twin cities station think it was a fabulous idea?

NO, I DID NOT PEE MYSELF. Get that horrible thought out of your head. I had enough time today to hear Crisco get refused flat-out by one woman and then set on my path to work. Wouldn't you know it, about 2 blocks from the building I look ahead and see Mr. Crisco on a cell phone (his communication with the station personalities) and two women standing to his side. These women looked extremely professional, clean-cut, but very young. So because of the latter fact, why wouldn't they agree to peeing in front of a perfect stranger? I heard enough of their conversation on the walk past that it made my skin crawl. "Oh, they way we would do it would be clean, it wouldn't take much time at all!". BLECH.

Oh the things people will do nowadays.