Unfortunately, like much of the trip, the unplanned execution went poorly. Initially, I had wanted Emoinacloset, Robocop and me to wake up early and get discounted same day tickets in the Financial District, but sleeping at four in the morning has a tendency to make one wake up past eleven. Upon oversleeping, we changed up our plans and headed to Times Square with all the other tourists and lined up at the TKTS booth.
30 minutes in line and a lot of smartphone research later, Emoinacloset suggested we go directly to the theater box offices and get student tickets. The big risk, however, was that these significantly cheaper student tickets could be long sold out already. Feeling the emptiness of my bank account I decided to take the risk.
Our first stop was the Book of Mormon, a musical written by the creators of South Park. At the box office, they told us that did they do not sell student tickets but instead did a drawing for steeply discounted tickets at 5:30pm instead. We left the theatre a bit hesitant about leaving our hopes of seeing Broadway to chance, so we tried our luck at Chicago, but were told that student tickets were sold out within 15 minutes of the box office opening. Leaving Chicago, we realized that the drawing was the only way we were going to watch anything that day. As if it could improve our chances, I loudly yelled out "I AM FEELING LUCKY!” as we walked away from the theater.
Coming back to the Book of Mormon 15 minutes before the drawing, we were feeling very enthusiastic about our chances. There was a line with about 30 people so we thought our chances of winning were pretty good, then we realized that this was the line for standing tickets and the ever growing crowd in front of the main doors was for the drawing. When we saw the size of the crowd which eventually topped out at a little over a hundred people, our hearts sank and any feeling of luck was gone. We filled out our forms and nervously waited.
There was a man with a megaphone announcing the winners and he asked people to "act like they won something" if their ticket was drawn. We took that to heart and when Robocop won, he cheered as obnoxiously as possible. Robocop even hollered the entire time he swam his way through the crowd to get to the ticket office.
While Robocop was waiting to get his ticket, Emoinacloset and I were brainstorming about what to do next. Robocop could only get 2 tickets meaning that one of us would have to grab a standing seat and be separated from the group. We were both thinking of a fair way to decide who should be left out when Emoinacloset's ticket was drawn.
Hearing Emoinacloset's name, I just remember repeatedly screaming "OH SHIT! THIS IS RIDICULOUS" and jumping up and down as the crowd stared. I had just taken our obnoxious cheering to the next level. Thankfully, Emoinacloset wised up and took the door that the crowd was not blocking, minimizing his chances of getting assaulted.
Inside the box office, Emoinacloset told me he overheard an old couple that was standing in front of us, angrily say they had entered the drawing three times and never won. Later, we learned from a mutual friend that the show was sold out for months! Hearing all of that just made winning all the sweeter.
Immediately after getting the tickets, we camera whored it up, taking multiple pictures in front of the theater. We even went back to the theater after walking a block away because I had the brilliant idea of tebowing with the tickets.
The musical was great, but I have to say winning those tickets was even better. This was easily the high point of our NYC trip and a definite “life moment” that I will remember forever.
