Cherie has cheerleading practice and doesn’t even stick around to wait for things to start. While Dad and Uncle Randy anxiously pace backstage, Ted and I stand off to the left hand side of the stage and watch the people entering the auditorium.
‘How come no hot girls come to these things?’ asks Ted. ‘It’s always old people.’
I’m scanning the crowd and realizing he does make kind of a good point. It’s mostly people over fifty. There are a few little kids running around, like around nine or ten. They must have parents or grandparents here that want to listen to the talk. The room seems to be filling up somewhat quickly. I don’t think you could seat more than 200 hundred people in the theatre. There’s only about thirty seats still left.
‘No girls huh?’ says Ted since my silence isn’t serving as an adequate confirmation.
‘I don’t think so,’ I say. I really want to tell him that I wouldn’t come to a forum of death seekers in search of a date, but I keep my mouth shut. Besides this should all be over within less than two hours.
‘I’ll talk to you later,’ says Ted before walking toward the back of the room to dim the lights half way. This quiets the restless crowd a little and lets them know the presentation will start in less than five minutes.
My job tonight is to pass the spare microphone around during the question and answer time at the end of the presentation. The rest of the time I plan on listening to my iPod.
I perch myself on a stool where I can see the audience, but they can’t see me. That’s the only thing I like about coming to these silly shows, being able to watch a whole crowd of people that can’t see me. People do silly things when they think no one is watching.
There’s one young couple I see in the crowd, they look like they’re in their early twenties. The girl isn’t too bad looking either, Ted will be jealous if he spots them. He’ll probably ask if I noticed them later on and then tell me how the guy looked like such a dickhead; he looks like a normal dude to me but Ted’s like that. He gets funny around other guys he doesn’t know. Especially when they have a girlfriend and he doesn’t.