Last night Lillith Fair and I went to see David Sedaris at the Akron Civic Theater…were any of you there? We had great seats at the back of the first section, right on the aisle directly in front of the podium…great view. At the very last second, four people sat in front of our group, and as luck would have it, the tall guy sat in front of short me.
No problem, I thought. I’ll just hang my head out in the aisle if I need to see around him, and still have a direct view of David.
What I didn’t realize is that the ushers had just seated The Human Bobble-head in front of me. He’d lean his head to the right, and I’d lean to the left, at which time he’d flip his head back to the left. I’d counter with a slope to the right, and back he’d go. So I’d lean out into the aisle a bit, and he’d lean out farther! Back and forth, as if his head was on a spring! The man could not keep his head still for more than 30 seconds! When I mentioned this to Lillith Fair’s daughter, she started giggling everytime he flipped his head from side to side…fortunately everyone was laughing so hard at David that she didn’t disturb anyone! But it almost distracted me from the performance.
Then he discovered the moving clouds on the ceiling, and I got a few moments of stillness while he gazed ceiling-ward. That’s when I got a whiff…he’d had a few adult libations before arriving, but he wasn’t extremely drunk, thank goodness! Then he went back to the side -to-side flipping. It took all my self-control not to reach out and grab his neck and hold his head still! Even the baby that started crying halfway through the performance wasn’t as annoying as the Bobble-head.
Fortunately David Sedaris is entertaining enough that it didn’t spoil the evening.