So, there I was, nominated for an Emmy. Actually, it must have been my second nomination, because I said to the ticket taker “I’m now a multiple nominee!”
Strangely, the ceremony was taking place in some kind of theatre in Pentagon City back in Arlington. Even more odd was the presence of people I used to work with. There was a professor who saw me and gave me a box filled with old photographs and passports of Holocaust victims for use in an upcoming article, he asked me to give them to my boss — who happened to be sitting on the other end of the theatre. Important historical and uniquely irreplaceable possessions of oppressed and murdered people, and thrown carelessly into a cardboard box, which I complained about to everyone around me. I took them to my boss, who said things I couldn’t understand over the chatter of so many other people, then went out to the lobby to get a program, which was not free. But they were out of them, and were instead substituting the 2004 program from the social studies conference which I designed.
By then, the opening number had started, live on national television, and I didn’t want to go back in and disturb it — the theme was “Under the Sea” for some reason, and the entire number was silent, with dancers mouthing words like fish. Dammit, I thought, I’m a multiple Emmy nominee and went right in, where I stood in the back watching Rita Moreno welcome viewers to the show.
At the commercial, the usher found me a seat and I as I sat I realized that I was right next to Oprah — she must have come in late, too. At first, she was just being polite, but after a moment she really started chatting with me. I guess she just can’t help herself — after all, she’s a talk show hostess. I started telling her how ironic it was that I’d moved to California and then flew back home to the Emmys. Realizing that I still had my camel coat on, I wriggled out of it in my seat.
Then, the usher appeared behind me and told me I had to leave the theatre. I immediately figured it was because I was talking too much — and not as famous as Oprah, I was singled out for retribution.
Then he tells me it’s because I took my own coat off. That they have ushers to do that for me. I looked at him, twisting in my seat, and hiss I’m a multiple Emmy nominee. When you ushered me in, you didn’t offer to take my coat. Then, I stood up in the next to back row of this unnamed Pentagon City theatre and said in my loudest possible voice,
Are you mad?!
And then I woke up a few moments ago, here in Austin where I would never need a camel coat.
Oh, and I am a multiple nominee (and winner) of Educational Press Association Awards. Oprah wasn’t there for those.
