A Night of Wickedness

This year, one of my wife's Christmas gifts included two tickets to see Wicked the Musical.  Her other gift was my agreeing to go without complaining.  At the risk of losing my Man Card, I'd have to say that I enjoyed myself a bit, even if our journey to the Emerald City didn't go quite as planned.

Over our twelve years together, my wife has learned how horrible I am when it comes to subtle hint dropping.  It's best if you just tell me what you want from me.  So when she told me she would like to see Wicked the Musical, I took that not-so-subtle hint to mean that I needed to get us some tickets.  After one day of ticket hunting and calling baby sitters (Grandparents), I was well on my way to giving her a Christmas to remember.  The problem is, I stopped with the tickets.

I thought I had everything set up for a great evening.  It wasn't until dinner that I realized maybe I should have done a little more planning.  I figured we would catch some dinner before our trip to the theater so off we headed to our favorite, The Olive Garden.  The closer we came to our destination the more I started to wonder to myself.

"Should I have made reservations?"

When the hostess said we would have a 45-minute wait, I knew the answer.  Okay, so I screwed up our dinner plans, but at least there are plenty of places to eat nearby right?

"Nothing says romance like breakfast for dinner." - The Wife

At least she is understanding and can laugh at/with me when I screw up.  We were in and out in the same amount of time it would have taken us just to get a table across the street.  That should count for something.  On to the theater...

Ten dollars worth of parking and a short wait in the "Will Call" line later, I felt like the night was going much better.  Little did I know that this musical had the running time of a Lord of the Rings movie.  Throw in a thirty minute delay of game penalty and we're looking at not getting out of the theater until 11 p.m.  This wouldn't have been too much of a big deal if I had arranged for overnight baby-sitting and a hotel room for ourselves.

I didn't.

And we were a solid hour and fifteen minutes away from the grandparents.

Thankfully, the parking garage may have saved the night.

The entertainment provided in the parking garage was well worth the ten-dollar admission price.  By the time we reached our car it was 11:30 and there were already cars lined up, with people honking and shaking their heads at each other.  This was the perfect time for some marital bonding.  Wicked had some great special effects, the singing was spot on, and the costumes and props were amazing, but the real entertainment came in the garage.

Nothing can bring two people closer together than making fun of the idiocy of complete strangers.  We spent the next twenty or thirty minutes, just sitting in our mini-van making up back stories to the people inching their ways through the garage, wasting gas, polluting the environment, and displaying true wickedness.

There was the mom in an old, beat up mini-van, wearing what appeared to be some sort of dead animal around her shoulders.  There was the bald dude in a huge 4-wheel drive, extended cab Ford that looked ready to jump out of his truck and beat the next person that tried to pull out in front of him.  But the most entertaining (and sad) thing we saw, was the absolute selfishness and hatred that people showed towards each other.  If everybody had taken turns, we could have all been out of the garage in little time.

People would rather risk rear-ending the car in front of them than allowing somebody to cut in front of them.  It was absolutely amazing to see people rev their cars up with one foot and immediately apply the brake with the other, all in the hopes of getting out before one other person.  And that's what's wrong with our society.

It's not guns, violent video games, or the lack of/presence of an omnipotent being in schools.  It's the fact that some, okay, probably all, people are selfish and disrespectful.  They would rather get their way or be first or whatever the case may be, than to put someone else's wishes in front of their own.  Until we learn that we're all in this together, we'll continue to destroy ourselves.  And that, is truly wicked.