A few months ago, I went to see my girlfriend, Gillian in Columbus, Ohio, for the weekend. Since she is the Head of Wardrobe for the national tour of the musical Cats, I don’t really get a chance to see her. The touring company has them on the road almost seven nights a week and they are in a different city almost every night. I literally could not take another weekend of being away from her and decided that I was going to leave from work on Thursday and fly out to Columbus. Cats was playing there that weekend and her bus was scheduled to arrive at 8am. That would give me about four hours with her before she had to go to work. I ordered room service for breakfast the next morning at 9:30, plenty of time for the bus to get there and give us some time alone.
The next morning arrived and I eagerly woke up at 7:30. 8am came and went. No Gillian. 9am. No Gillian. I called but got no answer. About ten minutes later I got a text back. “We blew a tire. Be there in about an hour.” The tour bus finally arrived – at 11am. Gillian called me. “We’re at the theater two blocks away,” she said. I ran over as fast as I could to see her. When I got there, she was unloading her bags from under the bus. I walked up to her and gave her a hug, noticing that her co-workers were looking at us. “Don’t mind us,” said David, the Head of Wigmaking. “We’re just quietly judging you.”
Gillian and I dashed over to the hotel. Thankfully I had asked for a late checkout. I was safe until 2pm. Gillian wanted to check into her room and grab a quick shower before she went to work. I helped her bring her stuff up to her room and she jumped in the shower. I ran downstairs and got her now ice cold breakfast. She had just enough time to swallow down a few bites and drink some coffee before she went to the theater. I was all alone until 5pm.
A few days before I had told my brother, Peter, I was going to Columbus. He said, “Why don’t you go to the Columbus Zoo?” A good suggestion, I thought. A point of travel advice, however. The Columbus Zoo is not in Columbus, or if it is, it’s either in another state with a city that is also called Columbus or you travel all the way around the earth the opposite way in order to get to the zoo. At least that’s what it felt like, and what the cab meter seemed to indicate.
Once I got to the zoo, the temperature dropped to what seemed like -10 degrees. The Chilean penguins I saw looked happy (like this was weather they were finally used to) and the flamingoes almost seemed like they were ready to turn blue.
By coincidence, it was the night for Wild Lights, the opening of the Christmas season at the zoo. They were featuring their polar bear exhibit. I made my way through the rest of areas: through the manatee habitat, the kangaroo walking trail (which would have allowed the kangaroos to walk right up to me, but sadly it was closed), past the bald eagles, the puma, the grizzly, black, and brown bears. Finally I was at the Polar bears. I had heard from one of the volunteers that they had been out all day hunting salmon in their simulating environment. I walked up to the exhibit. “They’re feeding right now,” the volunteer said. “You can sort of see them if you look here.” I looked toward the side of the exhibit to see either a polar bear or a person in a polar bear outfit. I couldn’t really tell from the angle I was looking. The main attraction was a bust.
I started walking back toward the main entrance. It was getting close to 5pm and I would be able to see Gillian for her dinner break. I suddenly saw a sign for Arctic Foxes. Since foxes and cats are Gillian’s favorite animals, I couldn’t pass them up. The foxes were all asleep (or at least appeared to be) when suddenly something jolted them awake. The zookeeper was feeding them. Each of them was supposed to get one piece of meat. Somehow, though, one of the foxes outsmarted the zookeeper and ran off with three. For the next five minutes, she chased the fox around the pen trying to get back the stolen meat.
I caught a few more animals on the way out and caught the incredibly expensive cab the way back (and yes I asked if there was a bus. It appears when it gets cold, bus drivers are unable to drive to the zoo. Who knew?)
I met Gillian for dinner and gave her the stuffed Arctic Fox I bought at the Zoo giftshop. “Aww,” all the actors and theater crew gushed. Gillian blushed a little.
Gillian took me through the backstage to meet all of the people she worked with. “This is my boyfriend,” she said as she introduced me to the locals who worked for her. She got me a ticket to see the show and after a few more introductions I went in through the front doors to my ticket and my seat. For the first time since 1983, I saw Cats. After the show, I saw a bunch of the people I had met backstage. “Hi, boyfriend,” they all kept saying. I realized that Gillian hadn’t actually told them my name.
The next morning I walked Gillian to the theater. “What are you going to do today?” she said once we were inside. “I don’t know,” I said. “Should I see Cats again?” “Well,” she replied. “Do you know what would really help me? Could you go to Target and buy as many Gilligan and O’Malley spandex thongs as you can? They gave us the wrong underwear for the actors.” “Okay,” I said. Back to the hotel I went, with the product number and a list of Targets in Columbus in hand.
I called the number “I was wondering if you had about thirty spandex thongs. They’re not for me, they’re for Cats.” Silence. I sort of repeated it to myself in my head. I probably shouldn’t have said it that way. “Let me explain,” I said. “My girlfriend makes costumes for Cats and she needs spandex thongs because the other underwear doesn’t work as well.” I was just making it worse. “Should I just read you the item number?” The woman at the first Target apparently did not find spandex thongs on Cats (or cats) amusing and quickly dismissed my call. “Sorry, we don’t have any of that item.”
“Liar,” I was tempted to say. “You just won’t help me because you think I’m a pervert who put thongs on cats! Well, I don’t, but if I did, after the way I’ve been treated I wouldn’t shop at Target for my cat fetish undergarments.” I didn’t. It was the Midwest after all.
I was a little more prepared on the second call. “Have you heard of the musical Cats?,” I started. That seemed like a little better way to begin. The second Target had 19 of them. I texted Gillian. “Get Them!!!,” she replied.
I called for a taxi and one drove me to the Target. I told him the story and he waited for me to pick up the thongs and bring them back. I walked them into the backstage of Cats. “I told everyone that you got the thongs,” she said. “You are such a good boyfriend,” said one of the locals. I hoped Gillian thought so too.
I went back to the hotel and worked on schoolwork until Gillian got off of work. We thought about going out to a restaurant, but there was nothing really open. “Let’s just go up to the room and get room service,” Gillian said. After tracking down thongs in Columbus, room service seemed like a good idea.
TO BE CONTINUED
