Wasting Away Again in La-La Ville

La-La and I became friends when she and I were fired from the same radio station.
I deserved to be fired. It was only my second broadcasting job, and I was completely clueless.

La-La, however, as far as she and I could figure, was fired for putting her feet on a desk.

In any case, we bonded immediately.

We did lots of fun things together. Probably our most brilliant idea was to form a Wednesday evening walking club which had a foot route that passed the local ice cream stand.

After we'd both gotten new jobs, we went to see Jimmy Buffet in concert.

The concert was interesting, not because Jimmy Buffet is a legend, or because his songs are classics, not even because we got lost on the way to the arena, but because La-La and I had the nosebleed seats.
We were located in the last row on the top terrace.
We were so far back in the theater that we sat on the backs of our seats and leaned against the wall.
They could have replaced Jimmy with some guy sitting on stage with a guitar, and they could have played a tape while the guy on stage chewed gum, and we'd have been none the wiser.
We were that far away.

Now...
If you can imagine a theater with three terraces full of Jimmy Buffet fans, you can imagine the magnitude of the crowd emptying the theater all at the same time after the concert.
And we were at the very top.
The very last in line to leave.

We considered how long it would take us to reach the main floor, cross the lobby, wade out to our car, and nose our way out of the parking lot before we'd even begin the two hour drive home. If we did the math correctly, we'd get home in time to go straight to work.

I'm pretty sure it was my idea, and I'm pretty sure I'd only been joking when I suggested a solution. However, La-La was definitely the one who did it.

She gently took my hand and placed it in the crook of her elbow.
"You ready?" she asked.
"No."

And then my friend leaned forward and told the person in front of her, "Excuse me, my friend is blind."
"Oh, certainly," replied the stranger as she stepped aside.

I smiled awkwardly (I was sincerely embarassed... which, ironically, aided the deception) and stared at a spot on the far wall.
I blinked a lot.

The farther we went, the louder La-La announced, "Excuse me! My friend is blind. Thank you."
I echoed thank yous.

The crowd simply parted.
Like the Red Sea.

Once we started, we were fully committed. There was no way to stop this ruse.
We couldn't just drop the act in the middle of the crowd and say, "Just kidding!" without being lynched by an angry mob.

And there were three floors of people to pass.

When we came to stairs, La-La stopped.
"Stairs," she said to me. Loudly.
"How many?" I asked. Loudly.
And we slowly stepped down, counting each one. Loudly.

I felt so guilty. People were so nice.
Then again, they all stared.
Perhaps we were entertaining to watch.

We walked hand in arm through the entire theater, the entire crowd.
It was like having a Fast Pass at DisneyWorld.

It wasn't until we reached the outdoors and were out of sight of anyone we'd lied to that I told La-La she was evil, and we laughed and ran to our car.

I'll bet we were on our way home before most of the third tier was down to the second floor.

That's my friend La-La.
She now lives 12 hours away.
I miss her.