And why it is really important to pay attention to every single sign.
And why I want Must Have a GPS system.
And Oh Yeah…
Chris Rock!
Okay, I know some of you are dying to hear about my evening with Chris Rock. We will begin my personal tale of excitement, laughter, and how 2 girls ended up very lost, with the adventures of the Chris Rock show.
Tiffany and I left my house sharply at 5 pm to ensure enough travel, traffic, and ‘get lost’ time on our way down to the lavish/swanky Borgata Hotel. It was pouring rain, misty and foggy which made for some slightly dangerous driving conditions. Fortunately, Tiffany is one hell of an excellent driver, even with bald tires.
As we made our way down the New Jersey Parkway, we hit the typical brick wall of rush hour traffic. Tiffany is not a daily commuter. She had no idea how bad traffic really is, all the time, every day, between the hours of 4pm-7pm on any given highway in the entire state. This is what Tiffany looks like while shouting obscenities to the other drivers on the road.
After making it past all of ‘The Shore Exits’ on the Parkway, we were blessed with a wide-open highway. Now sailing at a comfortable 75 miles per hour, we arrived in Atlantic City by 7pm. (One full hour before show time.)
We followed all of the signs guiding us in the right direction towards the Borgata Hotel. As I looked over the horizon, my face lit up much like one of the Casinos. I hadn’t been to A.C. in years. I was thoroughly excited, through and through.
I could not wait to see Chris Rock performing ALL NEW MATERIAL, for this years tour entitled: No Apologies.
We arrived at the Borgata Hotel by 715 pm. And this is where we parked our car. We went straight to the box office to collect our tickets. Both starving and thirsty, our first objective was to get our Eat and Drink on. After stuffing our faces and slamming our beverages, at lightening speed, we scurried over to the slot machine designated Smoking Area for a few drags of a cigarette. (Ah. Yes! With 20 minuets to spare until show time.)
We made it through the line, up the escalator, and past the gates of security to The Event Center at precisely 8pm. Whew. As we stood in the last line of people, waiting to get inside the actual arena, a woman security guard (deemed the position of searching people’s bags) approached me and asked to search my bag (two feet away from the entrance).
Apparently…you are Not Allowed to bring any sort of camera or recording device into the show. Oh. Ooops. I did not know that. Had I known that handy piece of information, I would have either: a) hidden my camera somewhere inside of my gigantic purse, or, b) left my camera in the car.
Instead, having never been to the Borgata myself, and not knowing my way around, and in light of the now serious time constraints, I stayed in the line holding our place, while Tiffany literally jogged (in 4 inch high heels) through the entire hotel to leave my camera at the front desk Coat Check.
Just in the nick of time, finally inside the theatre, seated comfortably, yet having missed ½ of the opening act, we were able to relax.
The instant Chris Rock walked onto the stage; the entire room was on their feet. Thunderous applause rang through the air. Hoots, Hollars and Collective Cheering could be heard for miles.
Our seats were Perfect. Except for one little detail. We were seated directly behind this guy.
I swear on everything holy it was exactly like sitting next to an even more cracked out version of the infamous Flava Flav. (Too bad I wasn’t allowed to have my camera. Any photo of that guy would have been priceless.)
What would have been even better if I had my camera? (Besides taking really awesome pictures of Chris Rock.) If I had the ability to record audio sounds coming out of the ‘What Could Have Been Flava Flav’ guy.
He was totally out of control. He was so loud, so obnoxious, with a very distinct cackle for a laugh. He also felt that it was imperative to shout out loud to the entire ‘house’ “Obama Baby! Obama Baby!” “O.B. Baby!” and “Absolutely!” completely out of context at any given moment.
Tiffany and I quietly managed to move our seats, situating us further away from the ‘What Could Have Been Flava Flav’ guy. Meanwhile, the other people in the audience glared at him throwing darts with their eyeballs and giving nasty looks until he finally shut his cake hole.
Chris Rock has always touched on some very delicate subjects such as: race, politics, and the differences between men and women. And, he did not disappoint.
I tried to write out the jokes he told during the show for ya’ll to read here in this post, but I cannot write that fast, on tiny notebook paper, in the dark, with a pen…that ran out of ink. (And being that I was camera-less, I was unable to record any audio.)
I am currently unable to bring back or reconstruct the jokes Chris Rock told that night.
Without his delivery and facial expressions backing up the jokes, I am finding it impossible to convey just how funny why one would need a pack of prairie dogs to “gather up” “sloppy titty’s”.
I am unable to properly express how Chris Rock thinks its “fucked up the United States has invaded a county full of Oil, yet our gas prices have sky rocketed. Because if he had invaded an I-hop, pancakes would be really cheap.” Or, how “The hardest working man in the Gas Station has to be the guy going up and down the ladder constantly changing the prices.”
He mentioned prescription drugs. He talked about how ADD medications will NOT work on our children, unless of course the pills also came with a Belt inside of them. And about “Steroid Dicks” on Viagra.
He expressed his personal theory about Tupac and Bin Laden hiding out together making mixed tapes. Or how strange it was that Britney Spears lost custody of her kids, and yet OJ Simpson managed to keep his.
He talked about how ironic it is that Fat People are allowed to make fun of Skinny People all day long – and rightfully so, but the second a Skinny Person makes fun of a Fat Person…its just mean.
He enlighten us on the only two times during the course of ones life when it would be appropriate to use the TWO most offensive words in the English Language. 1) Faggot and 2) Nigger.
And, how you need to be careful whom you complain to. After coming home from work, its not really a good idea to bitch to your nanny (who has been knee deep in your kids shit) about how hard your day was.
He explained with great accuracy the definition of ‘Passport Pussy’. And, he pointed out that the Television show Desperate Housewives should really be called ‘Ungrateful Bitches’.
And, how Hilary Clinton is exactly like Glen Close in Fatal Attraction. “I wont be ignored.”
*Seriously, I tried my best to remember these jokes verbatim, but I cant. Damn it.
You are just going to have to take my word for it when I say, Chris Rock was on the top of his game and absolutely hysterical.
After the show ended (with a roaring standing ovation) Tiffany and I made our exit via service elevator. That’s right. We snuck onto the service elevator to avoid being held up by the massive crowd.
We retrieved my camera from the Coat Check, stopped to have one drink and a cigarette before heading back to the car. Both of us were so proud of ourselves for not wasting our money on gambling, and for leaving the Casino by 11:15pm. (I know my body all too well. An all-nighter in AC could very easily have landed me a week with pneumonia.)
We left the parking garage promising not to converse with each other until we were safely on the highway headed home. (Since we almost missed the exit for AC on our way down because we were talking too much.)
With our eyes peeled and paying close attention, we managed to securely enter this highway. Yeay. On Our Way Home.
And then we started talking. We laughed while reciting some of our favorite lines from Chris Rock. We bragged about how proud our parents would be of us for coming home at a decent hour. There was barley any traffic and the weather had cleared. We were making excellent time. An hour into the drive we even called our children to let them know we’d be home shortly.
And that’s exactly the same moment our evening took an interesting, unexpected, all too shocking turn.
– Would ya’ll like to know how did we end up driving over this bridge heading full speed towards This Place?
-Yeah. Well. So Did We.
What we had thought was the Parkway, suddenly didn’t seem like the Parkway anymore.
[This is pretty much how the next conversation between Tiffany and I went down]
Me: “Hmmm. This seems strange. I don’t remember the Parkway splitting in half like this on the way down to AC. Do you?”
Fanny: “No. I don’t. This really doesn’t look right.”
Me: “What the hell. Where are we?” “Are we even still ON the Parkway?”
Fanny: “I don’t remember getting OFF the Parkway…”
Me: “Me Either.”
Fanny: “How did we even get HERE?”
Me: “That’s what I’d like to know. And where is HERE? ”
Fanny: “Wait? What the fuck is THAT? Is that a Bridge?”
Me: “Yes. It most certainly IS a bridge…what the…where the…Oh My God…Are we…ARE WE ARE IN FUCKING PENNSYLVANIA? We are in Pennsylvania. Holy SHIT!! Is that a sign for ‘Sesame Place’?
Yeah. Um. We had been driving for over an hour…
In The Wrong Direction.
As it turns out, we had never gotten onto the Parkway. At. All.
After all of our promises to pay attention to the road, we were so caught up in our conversation, we missed every single sign for the Parkway. We had accidentally stayed on the Atlantic City Express Way, All The Way into Pennsylvania.
If that wasn’t enough…
Not even ‘Ruby Slippers’ could have gotten us out of this next situation.
After going through the Toll Booth we had no idea where we were, or what we were supposed to do, or how we were supposed to get home.
We had made it through the FAR LEFT Toll Booth in hopes of being able to flip the car around. We had planned on jumping back onto the very bridge we had just come over, only in the opposite direction. However, we were faced with a 50-foot high concrete divider. Obviously, that prevented us from being able to turn around.
We had no other choice but to move forward.
That’s when we were confronted with several different options (none of which we were familiar with). We had to choose 1 out of 7 signs that would lead us to who-the-hell-knows-where.
Suddenly out of the corner of my eye I spotted a sign that said 95 North. (At least we both knew that 95 would eventually lead us back to New Jersey.) Of course because of the way we exited the bridge we were now forced to cross over approximately 16 lanes from the FAR LEFT to get where we needed to be – on the FAR RIGHT.
If that wasn’t upsetting, after coming down the ramp, we landed smack in the middle of this. It was now well past midnight. We sat in silence. Shocked in disbelief at the amount of other cars trapped in the very same predicament.
There was some sort of massive construction taking place, which caused a 6-lane highway to condense into One Lane. Fucking GREAT!
After at least 30 minuets of crawling an inch at a time, begging, shouting, and waving at the other cars to please for the love of g-d roll their windows down, desperately trying to ask someone, ANYONE, if the road we were on would really take us towards the New Jersey Turnpike…the highway magically returned to open road 60 miles per hour conditions.
And that’s when we noticed this light on Tiffany’s dashboard turn the warning shade of Amber. Having no clue as to when or where the next rest area would be located I began to laugh. Wildly. Hysterically. Uncontrollably. So did Tiffany.
Luckily, we saw a ‘Food and Fuel’ signs not too far off. So, we made our way into the lovely town of Langhorne? Pennsylvania.
Stopping for gas was top priority. Here’s a little fact for you, in the state of New Jersey it is illegal to pump your OWN gas. Neither one of us have ever had the ‘pleasure’ of holding a nozzle, or removing the cap on a gas tank. [This was also the time when the weather changed from semi drizzling, back into down-pouring rain and very windy conditions.] Watching Tiffany get blown away by gusting winds while trying to control the flow of gas from the pump to her tank – is an image that is now and forever tattooed to my brain. I didn’t have the heart to take a photo of that.
It was now way past 1am. We should have been home already. Alas, we were at least another two full hours away from the comforts of our beds.
Famished. Frazzled. And Frustrated. Tired and beaten down we stopped at this restaurant.
There could not have been a patron in the building over the age of 15. Okay, okay, maybe 20 years old TOPS. Not to mention all of the kids were of the Elmo ‘EMO’ decent complete with dyed black hair, excessive facial piercing, raggedy clothing, and sulking angry faces.
(I dared NOT to take ANY photos of that.)
There was one good thing about being lost in Pennsylvania? They had a full service BAR inside of the Diner, plus…Indoor Smoking. Needless to say, happier, we could not have been.
We ordered, we ate, we used the skanky restrooms to relieve the enormous bladder pressure that had been building for two hours, and laughed at the unfortunate string of events that had just occurred.
Well fed, prepared to face the next two hours in the car, we headed back out onto the highway. This time we made SURE we were going in the right direction.
I can honestly say for the first time in my life, I have never been happier to see THIS SIGN.
After we left the NJTPK and got on our own highway, we held hands much like when Thelma & Louise drove off of the cliff and screamed with sheer delight. We had survived. We had made it home. Alive. And, somehow unscathed.
By the time we arrived at my house it was 3:45 am.
Total travel time just to get back home: 4 1/2 Hours.
I don’t even think Tiffany came to a complete stop when she dropped me off in front of my building before peeling out of my parking lot.
* Oh, and did I happen mention, during this whole saga, we BOTH got our periods? At the exact same time? *
The next morning Tiffany called to inform me she had diagnosed herself with throat cancer from being able to smoke so many cigarettes inside. And I told her my head hurt so badly from laughing to hard I thought I was suffering from a skull fracture.
It was one of the best nights I have ever had.
