I’ve got some free time right now, might as well write a bit in The Notebook of Destiny, right?
Friday was the taping day on “According To Jim.” We were in only one scene and it was a short scene at that (don’t imagine they needed more than half of us, but I’ll still cash the cheque), so I figured it would be a short day.
We were playing gamblers/patrons in a riverboat casino, and I was sitting at a table with a dealer and other players. Instead of pretending to play, we decided to actually play something, and chose Blackjack, since you can play that silently. The dealer knew how to play even less than I did, so I didn’t completely suck at a sport/game/pastime for once. We had stacks of chips to play with, and I lost many of them, but it was fun.
We also got fed really well a couple of hours before the show started. I must’ve eaten something wrong, though (sometimes those dumpsters are just so inviting!), because my stomach began to ache as the day progressed. The taping started at 5:30, we were told, but by 6:30, we were still sitting around, waiting for our scene (which was the third on the schedule). I . . . how do I put this? . . . went to the bathroom once, twice, I believe three times during that wait, and when they finally called us in, around 7:00, I thought the worst was over.
As I sat, waiting for Scene B to end (we were C), stomach cramps began to pay me a visit. Small at first, they increased in intensity as the scene started. The scene before ours had been shot again and again--so much for "before a live studio audience"--and I hoped ours wouldn't suffer the same fate.
In between the first and second times through, my stomach did a violent clench and the time for a bathroom break had come. Painful and somehow humiliating, I held it in until it went away. Good thing too, for I was almost to the point where I was going to get up and run to the nearest restroom, regardless of my (incidental, at most) impact on the show.
Jim Belushi and Company came back in and started the scene over (I have no idea what they changed or didn’t get right the first time, since my attention was elsewhere . . . and we were still playing Blackjack, mind you). Partway through the scene, the stomach cramps came again, and I had to hold my breath, concentrating on my cards, and hoping the worst didn’t happen. Diarrhea is not our friend, kids, regardless of what the Bush Administration would have you know.
Thankfully, they only did the scene those two times, and then we were done. I walked very slowly toward the bathroom, knowing anything from a good jostle to a sneeze would doom me, and had to stop for a minute as the cramps came again, wondering if Jud Crandall was right and "Sometimes dead IS better."
Not to be too vulgar, but when I finally hit the bathroom, what I created was so vile the wallpaper shrivelled up and the ceiling turned black. I staggered out, had an allergy attack, and drove home listening to an old Sting album.
"What don't kill you just make you stronger." It was Gandhi who said that.
Bizarrely, I had no further symptoms over the weekend, except for a bit of melancholy, which I suspect was not diarrhea-related.
Today I am back on "House," one of my favorite places to be. I love the Fox lot, and the cast and crew all seem exceedingly cool. I would like to be a regular on this show. I'll settle for coming back tomorrow.
Rish Bromo-Seltzer Outfield
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