Monday, January 18, 2010

Opening Night

*Originally Posted January, 2007*


Why a pleasant hello to all, and to all a....well...pleasant hello. It tis' a new year, and with this new year of course comes new stories. So what is this story about you may be wondering? Well, it's about the Oklahoma City Opening Night New Year's Eve Party! and the adventures there of...*whew*... say that 5 times fast with a mouth full of turkey. Can't do it can you?... So anyway, with no more ado here is that story.


Now to start this story off properly you have to go back as far as October, for that is when I signed up to help volunteer with Galaxy Dollars Coffee for this year's Opening Night New Year's Eve party. Now at first when I signed up I was like, "Hey, I'm going to do some good here!" But shortly there after I started to ponder if I had done a wise thing by giving up my precious holiday evening. You may be asking yourself right now, why did he sign up for it in the first place if he was going to want out of it? Well you see, that answer consists of two parts... One, back in October I had nothing going on, on this festive evening, so it was fine and dandy... and Two, I found out later (and underline later... oh, I already did, forget it.) that I would be watching little children all night. As the night approached I started to receive invitations to events and what-not... and let me tell you, it was hard turning down "what-not"! After all this I realized that I had indeed made a grave mistake by giving up my precious holiday evening, but it was to late to back out on the person now... so to Opening Night I went.

I showed up downtown right on schedule for where I was going... Now I was prepared for the volume of people that were downtown, but the parking... the parking was just... well... crap. One would think that perhaps they might have an area for volunteers to park, or perhaps a shuttle to take you where you need to go, or at very least that you wouldn't have to pay for parking because you're volunteering... but no, no to all the above. Not only no to all the above, but they had police watching the free parking at movie theater so that people who weren't going to see a movie had to leave the lot, and park elsewhere. Me, I wasn't about to pay for parking, and as my friend Josh Langer would agree with me a hundred percent on I'm sure... I had to find a free parking space. So, I did what any cheap, stingy, college aged guy would do... search for a way in the movie theater's free parking lot! First I tried going to the parking lot under the over-pass that I knew about, but there was a guy there wanting money, so I told him I was just trying to exit and made a circle going back to where I began. As I waited for the light to change I thought of an idea! I turned back in the parking lot, I turned and acted like I was going to go the same under the over pass parking lot, but then made a left into the back entrance of the movie theater's parking lot... I was almost home free! I started looking for a parking space, when I look to the left and there's a cop sitting there in his car... but his back is to me... so quickly drive past and found a parking spot.

Now since there were no shuttles I walked all the way to where I needed to be. I got there on time, and prepared to work with the little ankle biters for the evening. But as I go to start helping out the girl in charge of the area asks, "Are you with Galaxy Dollars?"... To which I replied, "Yes."...She told me that they had enough help in this area, but that Galaxy Dollars was helping with the music area this year, and if I could help with that, that would be great... so I did. I made my way over to the Event Center and told them what was going on...It turned out that I vaguely knew the guy in charge of the music event. So he asked me if I wanted to MC for the night, to which I replied the only way a Ben could answer that question...hecks yes! Needless to say the night ended up being a blast, and except for one little snaf-foo the night went off without a hitch! Well, that will do it for now... hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year!

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