I will always remember that scorching Wednesday last August when I visited my friend in The Big Apple. It was my first time in New York and while the birds chirped, cab horns honked and a withered old man in blue and white L.L. Bean bibs introduced me to his 70-pound, 3-foot-tall Persian greyhound Rupert, Grasser (a friend of mine) and I walked down Broadway to check out Times Square.
Hungover and thirsty from Grasser's birthday extravaganza the previous night, we each bought $4 bottles of Dasani from a convenience store. While we gazed at all the people and the towering buildings around us, we walked by a guy in khakis and a baby-blue Gap polo shirt.
'Tickets. Tickets here,' the man said softly while staring at the ground.
'Tickets, tickets to Letterman,' said the man in the same nonchalant tone.
Simultaneously Matt and I looked at each other and thought, 'Yeah right! Tickets to Letterman? What's the catch'?
After answering the trivia question, 'What is the name of the deli store near the theatre'? with the correct answer 'Rupert Jee's Deli,' Grasser and I had three vouchers for a Letterman show filming later that afternoon starring Johnny Knoxville.
Astonished that we were actually going to see David Letterman in the flesh, Grasser and I met his girlfriend at The Ed Sullivan Theater for instructions about the show.
'Mr. Letterman likes the temp to be cold because of the stage lights. Dress warm because it will be 55 degrees,' instructed the staff.
'Be here at the red ropes in 45 minutes for the start of the show,' a tall guy with glasses told us. Little did I know those words would haunt me forever ...
'Sweet! We have just enough time to go back and change,' I told Grasser.
As we ran to the subway after changing, I realized that we only had five minutes. The doors to the R-Line subway car opened and the three of us hurried to studio.
'Thank God we're on time! Look at the line of people,' I said with relief. While standing in line, Letterman workers ushered people down the ropes. We finally got to the entrance and the tall guy with glasses stopped us and grabbed my ticket. He quickly ushered the last few people past us.
'Naw man, you guys weren't at the ropes at 4:45,' he said.
'What are you talking about? We were right in line with all those people for a half hour!' Grasser exclaimed.
'You didn't listen to directions! I said the red ropes in 45 minutes. You were at the blue ropes!' he yelled. Sure enough, the pompous Letterman guy was right. We stared back and noticed red, green, yellow and blue ropes all connected to each other.
'You have got to be kidding me! Who the hell would differentiate between the colors of the fricken ropes'? I yelled with disgust.
'Well maybe you should have listened to directions,' he said with a cocky attitude. Not only were we mad about blowing our whole afternoon on tickets to Letterman, we did not even get to see the show.
Though that day was not Sept. 11 when Al-Qaeda crashed two 767's into the World Trade Center, similarly there I was, standing in New York City and some jackass decided to ruin my day.
