More memories of Manilow: Entering the arena.

Before the concert, me and my friends went to this local new sportsbar that's getting written up in all the papers to get a sandwich and a beer, but the place was packed because of the Packers game, so we decamped to an Italian trattoria next door for a meal there before the Barry concert. The woman at the door, this hippie-ish late 20-something with braided hair and a swirly ceramic bead around her neck, asked if we were going to the concert (it affects service, I guess), and when we said yes, and I added that I couldn't wait for Manilow, she was like, "Oh, I love that Pina Colada song!", and I was like, "Actually, that's not Barry," and a friend of mine chipped in, "Yeah, it's Jimmy Buffett," and then I, being the bitch again, was like, "Maybe he covered it, but not originally," though when they asked who did it originally I couldn't remember, and so felt like a total asshole. Later in the evening "Rupert Holmes" came to me, and I told my friends -- they didn't know who he was -- and when I got the coats from the hippie door person, she was like, "You know, I was so messed up, I was like, thinking of that Copacabana song!", and I told her that that makes sense since the words are the same length and stress pattern and kind of sound alike -- "CO - pa - ca - BA -na" and "PI - na - co - LA - da", I said -- and then I added that Rupert Holmes did the Pina Colada song. "Who's that?", she was like.

Going across the street to the arena, there was this black woman in a bright orange directing-traffic suit directing traffic, and as we crossed the road in the crowd she waved us across with her lighted rod that like people use on airline runways and was like, "Enjoy the concert, everybody," and so I turned to her as I passed by her and was like, "Definitely!, how can we not?!?!?", and she just laughed at my enthusiasm.

At the entrance to the arena, my one friend pulled out of her purse the tickets (she had bought them for everyone online), and handed them to our other friend and me. "Gracias, senorita," I was like, and then this chunky women with big black hair and a sheepskin coat and nylons who was in line right ahead of us turned around with a big smile and was like, "That's so great you're speaking Spanish!", and when we all looked a little puzzled, she added, "I'm a middle school Spanish teacher, and I love to hear people speaking Spanish."

After that, we roamed through the building to find the escalators to go up a few tiers and find our seats. The lines for the women's restrooms were the longest I've ever seen, and everywhere you looked there were slightly-chunky suburban women wearing black, and here and there an even chunkier older woman with shorter coiffed hair in a puffy winter-themed yarn sweater with snowflakes on it, and fat bulging out from where the waist of her jeans dug into her stomach. And, everywhere you looked, people had glowsticks, and were just waiting.