Lucky Urinal Slevin

Finally having some time off what’s the best thing to do? Book my self solid. Last week I had the pleasure of going to back to back operas: Marriage of Figaro at the Met on Wednesday and Carmen at City Opera on Thursday.

Marriage of Figaro was nothing other than amazing. (It had better have been, 1) it’s the Met, 2) I paid $20 to stand in the back.) The only thing lacking were the sets which weren’t anything special, but the singers were all phenomenal.
Carmen was pretty good, but the woman playing Carmen (Kate Aldrich) was…amazing (she must be good if it was worth looking up her name). These seats were 4th row, but pretty much all the way to the side, so when the singers sang to stage right they sounded good, when they sang to stage left…not so good.

But the BEST thing about the New York State Theater is the urinals. They’re numbered! I’ve never seen numbered urinals before, but right on top of the fixture are giant 1 – 7’s (I had the privilege of using lucky number 2 before the show). Now, I assume they’re numbered for the sake of the Maintenance staff. “Jorge, urinal number 5 is acting up again” and you can’t freaking miss which urinal is #5 because there’s a big freaking 5 on top of it. But I must ask, if I say “the 5th urinal is acting up”…what other urinal could it be? How else would you count of urinals but from left to right, it’s just 1 row. Second, if you just said “One of the urinals is acting up” I don’t think it would take Sherlock Holmes (or Jorge Jolmes) to figure out which damn urinal it is.

So the only explanation can be that there’s some kind of betting scheme going on. As soon as the show finishes the staff watches through a camera and places bets on who will be the first of the 7 to finish.
I lined up at my spot in the first round after the show and I assume, being young and getting the inside lane (#1), I got pretty good odds. But out of no where this long shot old man at #6 takes the cup by a couple of lengths. Kudos to anyone who bet on him, he was probably a 40 – 1.