Letterman Tickets

The first rule of Letterman tickets is that they are free and fairly easy to come by. This, however, does not make the process of ascertaining them any easier. The first time that I requested tickets, it was 1995, and I was in high school and I thought it would be really awesome to just request them - having no real intention of getting to New York, be it by plane, train, or automobile. So I requested them, they came in the mail, and I put them on my bulletin board as a shrine of sorts to Mr. Letterman.

Fast foward about...oh 7 years, to 2002. I am now a senior in college, and the idea is that I will request them and then head to New York for spring break. Who goes to New York for spring break? no one, except stupid me with my stupid idea for Letterman tickets. So I request them again, and they ask you a trivia question that's fairly easy, and are you absolutely sure you can make the dates given? So here's the deal, I wasn't absolutely sure, and they haranged me and said that if I wasn't sure I ought to not request tickets becuase it goes against their policy. So I found this to be snobby and obnoxious and, how can I say this - lame. It's free tickets for crying out loud. So, I never made it down to New York to see Letterman, oh well.

Oh but wait, there's more. Fast forward again, or should I say creep forward to 2003 (I think). By this time, I have friends in college who now live in Connecticut, and I have a car - and low and behold I can totally drive down to the CT and then we can take the Metro North in and go see the show. Excellent! Or so I think. So we have the tickets, my friend and I head to the Ed Sullivan Theater. I say to myself, this is the first official time that I am going to see David Letterman, and with my luck I will be sitting in the back of the balcony. So we get in line the first time around to get the tickets. They have these interns, we'll call them pages, they have Late Show jackets, the whole gettup. Their job is to be perky and excited and full of life and energy, sort of the opposite of David Letterman (I guess if they stood out on the sidewalk and were rude and snarky, people would start calling the police). So anyway, these interns explain the deal about being really excited and perky and just in love with the concept of going to see David Letterman, and they let you in the theater - and oh did I mention that I was sitting in the back of the balcony? That's right, back of the balcony, can't see a thing, not even the monitor that will help me see a thing. Nothin'...

So what this brings me to is my most recent David Letterman attendance. I got the tickets probably 3 weeks prior to the show, and the nice woman, for the purposes of this blog her name will be Schmisa - she leaves a message saying she got my ticket request, can I please call her back. So, I call her back, she asks me the trivia question, I get it right, and then she asks me about my guest - Brandi. She says, are you absolutely sure Brandi can make it on that date? I say yes, I'm sure - she says, are you absolutely sure that Brandi can make it on that date? I say yes, I'm sure - she says are you absolutely, positively, resolutely, supercalifragilistically absolutely positive that Brandi can make it on that date? I say, 'well when you put it like that, I may just have to check." So I check with Brandi, and it turns out, she isn't free for the show, so I have to call back and change my guest. I change my guest and I call back Schmisa, and now the fun starts. I say Brandi can't go, but I have a replacement, and this woman loses it and says 'I told you last time that isn't what we agreed to, you can't change your guest.' (note to self: we didn't agree on a G-D thing). So being the nice person that I am, I apologize and say that if I can't replace the guest, I will just go myself. She says fine, and then starts taking information, and then pauses, and says 'you know what, let me check with my supervisor, because we usually don't this, but maybe they'll make an exception." So I wait, and then, low and behold, she says that they normally don't do this, but will make an exception for me. So this leads to two issues: a) why do I care that you're making an exception for a free ticket? and b) should I really be THAT grateful for it? For those of you playing at home, the answer to both is NO.

So, we arrive to pick up our tickets, we get our tickets, we get the lecture on why this is the best thing ever in the history of entertainment and we need to be super excited to be there, we are then asked to return in one hours time, at which point we are whisked back into the theater, then lectured AGAIN about how happy we should be to be there, we are let into the theater, have really great seats - the show starts, cameras are in the way, can't really see anything, Renee Zellweger comes out - she's boring, next is Gary Mule Deer - oh, you mean you haven't heard of him? nobody has. End of show. Thanks for coming.

And THAT was my Letterman experience. Maybe I should just stick with Conan - oh wait he moved.

:-(