I Am So Popular: Honey, Have You Seen My Contact Lens?

Let’s begin at the end of the show. Here’s the scene. I’m standing outside of the men’s room on the first floor, with my iPhone aimed at the door, as I wait for a certain little bald man (← not a euphemism) to emerge so I can take his picture. As I’m waiting, I overhear the conversation of two nearby lady ushers. It goes like this.

Usher One: They really tried to sneak those in?

Usher Two: Sometimes we just look the other way.

I listen some more and ascertain that to which they are referring. I go over and insert myself into the chat.

Me: Y’all are talking about smuggling water bottles into the show?

Usher One: That’s right!

Me: Really? Because the guys sitting in front of me smuggled PROSTITUTES into the show AND they had SEX with them. RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME.

Usher One (pursing lips, in a contemplative but not disbelieving way): Really? You should’ve come and gotten us.

What? And miss the show?

Now rewind. It all started off so innocently as part of a belated birthday celebration for my friend, Moss. Dinner at the ever-delightful East Side Café. And, for dessert, Elvis Costello at Bass Concert Hall. In truth, I’d planned to skip dessert, by which I mean, when I heard Costello tickets were going on sale sometime ago, I didn’t even bother. People who know me well might think this unusual. I am such a disciple of early Costello, and preached him for so long, that—seriously—friends used to call on EC’s birthday to offer me good wishes. But I’d been to a few of his sit-down performances in the past and it always feels a little weird to me, being in a room of aging former punk rockers (I include myself here), politely clapping between quiet, slowed down renditions of songs that somehow lose their pissed off edge when accompanied by banjo. But Moss surprised me with the ticket and I wasn’t going to say no.

So we're sitting in the ninth row, me unapologetically in my dorky but practical Birkenstocks, the Chuck Taylors stashed in the back of my closet, no longer a badge of cool, instead now merely a promise of aching feet. I work on my knitting while we wait for the band to start, which—how very unpunk of them—they do, on time. The row in front of us is empty, and Moss jokes that he’s bought all those seats, too, in case I want to put my feet up and also so my view will not be in any way obstructed.

I think “obstruct” doesn’t begin to capture what happens next.

In come two couples together. They plop down in front of us. It is too dark then to see that things are a little…uh… off in these pairings. But the picture gets both clearer and blurrier when, after a third standing ovation maybe 2.5 hours into the show, the crowd decides to remain standing (like, yes,we used to do the whole time, back in the day).

Now, I get a better look at the couples. Guy One, probably early forties, is suffering not only from little man syndrome, but little bald man syndrome, compounding his insecurity exponentially and upping the ante for what he must do to overcompensate. He is wearing a wrinkled linen suit and hipster glasses. Guy Two, also early forties, is sporting the male equivalent of Mom Jeans, hiked up high and belted, into which he has tucked his pink oxford shirt, the one with the white stripes and bad embroidery on the back featuring decidedly unpunk musical notes. His hair makes weathermen look good.

The girls—figure they are at least twenty years younger than their “dates”— are dressed pretty much alike. Each has on eight-inch stilettos. The scraps of “clothing” affixed to their bodies make American Apparel models seem, by comparison, like Mennonite women bundled up for a particularly cold winter. One has long dark hair and keeps pulling up her tube top, which reminds me of that terrible time when I was ten and playing Wiffle ball and my tube top fell down and revealed my little flat nipples to the boys, though I’m pretty sure Long Hair is not having the same horrified reaction I once had toward tube-droop.

Mom Jeans taps the girl next to Baldy and she switches places with the other girl and then suddenly, like synchronized swimmers out of water, they begin to ride the guys, bumping their bodacious booties over, across, and up and down the fellas’ man meat (men meat? What’s the plural on that?), as if Baldy and Mom Jeans are stripper poles.

Wait, did I mention this was the Bass Concert Hall and Elvis Costello, who last week had a birthday that would qualify him for an AARP membership if he were American, was onstage singing slooooow versions of his songs while an accordion player offered accompaniment?

Now, you might think the stripper pole thing, combined with the mostly-lack-of clothing, would’ve been enough. I certainly did. Actually, call me old-fashioned, I thought it might even be creeping toward the edge of ever-so-slightly more than enough. But no. Next thing I know, no shit, Baldy is apparently looking for a lost contact lens. And the place he is looking for this contact lens is very small and dark. Which is to say he is using one finger seemingly to probe for the business end of an in-use Tampax, upon which said missing lens must have affixed itself. I mean, what else could he possibly doing putting his finger there (if you know what I'm saying) in THE BASS CONCERT HALL with ME standing less than a foot behind him?

Oh, wait. Hold it. You don’t think…please don’t tell me Baldy and (to a lesser extent but still) Mom Jeans were inger-fay ucking-fay these young girls while Elvis Costello was mournfully wailing about the indignity of slavery? (Come to think of it, maybe that was apt.)

Even when EC brings Patty Griffin onstage—who, like, oh-my-god PATTY GRIFFIN—I cannot for the life of me concentrate on the last forty minutes of the concert. Because I am just too wrapped up in the porn show in front of me, entertaining fantasies of my own. Fantasies like I’m leaning forward, closer, now closer… and I’m up against Baldy’s ear, and I am whisper-growling, “Hey big boy, DO YOU PICK YOUR NOSE WITH THAT FINGER?!”

During the nineteenth encore the girls slip off to the restroom. I know I should follow them and tell them, “Ladies, trust me, I did the research for you decades ago! Your bodies? They’re wonderlands! Don’t do this. How much are they paying you? I’ll pay you double NOT to go back to them.”

But I don’t. I used their absence to try to enjoy the rest of the show, which I can’t, not really. Because I am too busy waiting for the lights to come up so I can chase down Baldy and Mom jeans and take their pictures and post them on the Internet.

Next day: I’m out walking the dogs and I run into a friend and tell her what happened. She asks me if they were married and I say, loud enough for a passerby to hear, “They didn’t have wedding bands on, but if they are married, I feel sorry for their wives.”

And the passerby stops and says “You know, that’s a book you should write: If They Are Married, I Feel Sorry For Their Wives.”

Well, you know what Elvis says…Everyday, everyday, everyday I write the book.

It takes a lot to shock Spike Gillespie. Congratulations Baldy and Mom Jeans! She also knows not all short bald men have issues, so save the hate mail. Spike blogs regularly at www.spikeg.com. She’s leading a writing workshop soon. Email spikegillespie@gmail.com for details.