The Shine

You have the right to remain sexy

I usually arrive at the venues I'm working hours ahead of time. It annoys me if I can't get in, but I get it. If you're six hours early you can't be surprised the place isn't open.

In case there was anyone like me, I was at the Moon early. Early early. I was there three hours before I saw another person. Plenty of time to get myself worked into a panic. A couple of guys showed up to set up the ring and chairs and everything and I about had a heart attack because I hadn't accounted on paying them. In my mind I was going to set up everything myself, which I now realize is insane.

When they told me Kim had already taken care of them I almost passed out with relief. I felt like I was running around on fire making decisions about stuff I didn't have any clue about. When Kim got there he took me aside and told me that I was driving everyone crazy. He told me to stop bothering everyone, if anyone needed me they knew where I was.

I about lost it when I suddenly thought that I hadn't hired anyone to emcee the event but then I remembered that I had. Some local sports guy. I had a couple beers to calm my nerves, which is not a great idea before you perform so then I freaked out about that and was drinking coffee like mad. Which is probably also not a good idea since I don't drink much coffee.

When Sir Stewart showed up, that calmed me down some. Kim probably sent him over to keep me occupied. For some reason his half-incomprehensible British nonsense reassured me. We talked for close to an hour. We may have even flirted a little. It's hard to tell, for me anyway, and when you add in his bonkers foreign wording there's no way to be sure. Pants doesn't mean pants? What's going on over there?

When people starting showing, I about had a heart attack for the 17th time. I thought the dates had gotten screwed up or I was in the wrong place. I thought something was horribly awry. When I went running to Kim in a panic, he was bemused. I asked him why those people were there and he said "to see the show" like I was insane. Which I may have been.

I checked the receipts a dozen times. 372 people bought tickets. That's more people than 90% of the shows I've worked. I guess I did okay with promotion. I suspect that Kim did something to get people here. I don't know what. Some shady Italian thing.

Once the show started it was all a blur. Some kids, I really need to stop referring to people my age as kids, from the school had a match before the official start at 7. The main event wrapped up before 9:30. It felt like the entire show went by in 3 minutes to me.

I don't remember anything from my match. I remember afterwards Kim laughing his ass off that I had booked myself to lose on my own show. I felt like I was running around backstage the entire night but I couldn't tell you what I did. Maybe I didn't do anything and I was just annoying everyone.

It felt surreal to be the one handing out money at the end of the show. Even more strange was people asking me what I thought of their matches and what they could do better. I'm not sure anyone has asked for my opinion on anything before. And I mean ever about anything.

Once everything was tallied up, Kim said that my cut was $1500. I may not have much schooling but I knew that wasn't right. Ten bucks a ticket times 372 people, the building itself was a grand to rent, that math doesn't add up. I grabbed some paper and pen to try and show Kim he was giving me too much money. He said "no, this is your cut". Being the dummy that I am, I still didn't get it.

Eventually I realized that he was just helping me out. Maybe he owes Doug a favor or two. Maybe he's just a nice guy. I was going to track him down and make him take back some of the money when the Brit intercepted me and asked me to grab a late dinner with him. At least I think he did. I need some kind of British to English dictionary.

In a night where I was off balance all the time, this really caught me off guard. Dating isn't something I think about. Or maybe that wasn't even what he meant. Sometimes dinner is just dinner. The good news is I didn't have to answer him because that's when Tallahassee PD showed up to arrest me.

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