Monday, September 17, 2012

Party crashers

Jane and I crashed a party Friday night. But it was an accident. We had signed up for the Fort Wayne Museum of Art 'Trolley Tour' and were pretty excited about it. The little blurb from the website says:
What is Trolley Tour? It's an evening to discover the vibrant art scene in downtown Fort Wayne. Trolley Tour is more than a night of art - it's lively music, fabulous nibbles from area restaurants and caterers, as well as an interesting mix of people. You don't need to be a lover of fine art to have a great time on Trolley Tour. Don't miss all the fun!

Hey, we didn't want to miss all the fun. So when Jane got home from work Friday we hustled our way downtown to the Museum of Art. We actually paid to park too, because we didn't want to be late (even though I HATE paying to park). There were some other people getting there as we arrived, and we went in. There was a small band playing, and people mingling about getting food from a food line, and there was an open bar set up; then we went around the corner and there was another food line, and then a dessert line, and another bar set up outside. So we were like "cool!" We filled several plates of food, got some drinks, and kind of just mingled about. It did kind of seem like lots of other people knew one another, and everyone was pretty dressed up compared to us (we were in blue jeans). But everyone was having a good time. At one point we were standing in a food line and this guys says, "Hi, I'm Dawn's husband. I don't think I've ever seen you two around the office." We asked what office, and he said "PHP." Jane told him where she worked, and we just said we were there for the trolley tour. He said some stuff that didn't really make sense to us; we all laughed; and filled our plates and went on.

Well, pretty soon we started wondering why the trolley hadn't stopped by yet. It was supposed to have been there at 6 pm, and it was almost 7. So we asked a couple of women if this was their first time. They shook their heads yes, and we asked if they knew when the trolley was coming. They said they didn't know, that they were there with PHP. Again with the PHP thing. We thought they must have just had a large group going on this tour. So we asked one of the girls who was picking up dirty dishes. She said she didn't know anything about a trolley tour. So we went to the Museum front desk and asked the guy who gave us our tickets. He burst out laughing and was like, "this is excellent!!!" Then he informed us that the trolley tour was actually NEXT week. He thought it was so funny, and he encouraged us to just stick around and have a good time. We thought it was pretty funny too, but we decided maybe we ought to leave. So we headed for the back door, and one of the servers says, "I'm sorry, but I need to see your tickets before I can let you leave." We just looked at her, and then she burst into laughter. Word had spread fast. So she encouraged us to stay too. I'm not sure why they all wanted us to stay. Probably because they wanted to see a couple of commoners hang out and get a free night on the big spenders. So we chatted with her a bit, had a good laugh, and then went on our merry way.

So... even though we felt a little foolish, it was pretty darn funny. We got a bit of culture, had some free food and drinks, met some nice folks, and had a good laugh and a really great story to tell. So it was a pretty nice night after all.

1 comment:

Jim L said...

It's a great story! I think you and Jane should become professional crashers. Could save a lot on food bills!

I mentioned it in the FB thread on this, but you should check out Abbie Hoffman's Steal This Book sometime. It's dated (very), but has some very funny suggestions for living cheap or free, one of which is to crash large wedding receptions (like Polish weddings in Chicago) and just say you're "Cousin So-and-So." I think you and Jane could riff on that for a long time.