Katie Doyle, Girl About Town

Saturday, Feb. 18, 2006 - 12:10 a.m.

So, I went to see a friend of mine in a play tonight, in a small, intimate little theatre in NoHo. It was very nice, she was good, the play was amusing (if long), and I was having a perfectly enjoyable, if rather insecure time, because I've never been so surrounded by people in expensive clothing in my entire life. I'm talking so much leather and shearling, a PETA person would have dropped dead from aneurysm right on the spot. Diamonds and gold galore. Fur. And clothing so expensive one group of 4 women were wearing outfits that if you took all my income for the entire year, you wouldn't be able to clothe their bottom halves. And one of them had more diamonds on then I thought a single person could actually wear...and that was just her right hand and arm. It was actually just this side of being gaudy, and it was definitely incredibly ostentatious. The guy in front of me who kept sighing so loudly people were turning to look at him was wearing a $300 Armani shirt in gold sateen (believe me, I only wish I was kidding...sateen is like the girliest fabric ever), and the guy in front of him whose cell phone went off right in the middle of my friend's big dramatic scene when she was supposed to be crying due to the guilt she felt over her best friend's murder, was wearing a gorgeous cashmere sweater...and they were the casual dressers in the room. So you know I was feeling really spiffy in my Old Navy fleece and faded Levis fat jeans, not to mention the no-longer-white 2.5 year old Nike sneakers I trudged all over Paris in, sitting there all frumpy in my glasses and no make-up, with straight-from-work, limp, static-y hair. ::sigh::

You know in the movies, when the hapless hero or heroine is sitting somewhere quiet, like a library or some kind of expensive shindig, and his/her stomach starts growling, and it's unbelievably loud and long, and ludicrously played for comic effect? The kind of Jim Carrey stomach growling that NEVER happens in real life, like, EVER, because dude, no one's stomach actually growls that loudly or for that long in actual human existence?

Yeah...

It does.

And it will wait until the quietest moment in the entire 2.5 hour long play in a very small and intimate theatre, and then it will keep it up for the entire second act. The ENTIRE second act. Not just part of the act or during a single scene, oh no. I'm talking long, loud, low growls that reverberate thru your entire stomach, starting somewhere around your left kidney, then rumbling across your midsection to your left side and angling from there up to your ribcage, where they will sit just under your diaphragm, rumbling like a Harley in major need of a tuneup. And not just any Harley. A Harley in with a bad exhaust pipe. And as soon as one ends, and you start to weep quietly in relief that thank merciful God, that's over, another starts. And another. And another, until it sounds like you have rolling thunder in your gut and armageddon is just a heartbeat away, and maybe, just maybe, people should start looking for the exits and considering exactly how they plan to run, screaming, from the theatre when all hell breaks loose.

I have never made that sound in my entire life. Usually when my stomach growls, it's a tiny little gurgle, a short little burble of sound that me and the person sitting next to me in a quiet room can hear, that lasts maybe 6 seconds and then is gone. This was a cacophany of horror. A symphony - if by symphony you mean the devil has planted his seed, and it's about to come ripping out of your womb singing it's own little demon song of harshness and all-devouring evil. Buffy the Vampire Slayer evil. Seriously. And it went on and on and on. I'm not kidding, it lasted the entire second act. I had my bag AND my parka completely pressed to my stomach to try to muffle the sound, and I STILL had to apologize to the woman sitting next to me who turned to look at me with such a look of horror, I really wished I was sitting on the Hellmouth and my chair would just open up and swallow me whole, right there. The other lady to my right, the one who was an editor on Moscow On the Hudson and one of my favorite movies, EVER, Three Days of the Condor, was very kind and understanding, but wow, you shoulda seen the look the other lady gave me. As soon as we hit second intermission, I bolted for the lobby, where I inhaled a package of Reese's and a pint of water, which thankfully calmed it all down, because otherwise I think I would have had to leave. Seriously, I did not know your stomach could actually do that. It was kind of amazing, in a sick fascination kinda way. And if it had happened to someone else, I'd have died laughing, but if I saw it in a movie, I'd totally roll my eyes and go "yeah, right," because come ON; nobody's stomach actually does that.

Except they do. And mine did.

Sigh, dude.

Peace out,
Katie

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