Raise Your Hand if You're Over 30...

Flash back: ...about 6 years ago at Vintage Bar on 9th Avenue in New York City (When it was still okay to smoke inside.) Several of my friends and I were enjoying champagne cocktails on a Tuesday afternoon. It was normal for each of us to meet up around five or six o'clock and spend time drinking, gossiping about bullshit, and drinking more!

We were young, in a show (so we had money) and very ambitious. Like most twenty-somethings in New York, we thought we knew everything! More importantly, we loved making each other laugh... And nobody was off limits!

So, this particular afternoon the four of us were sitting at the bar drinking and laughing... and before we knew it, we'd each had about 4 glasses of champagne... One of my friends (who shall remain nameless...) gets off her bar stool without saying a word, walks to a woman at the other end of the bar (who was REALLY OVER US) picked up her cigarette lighter, took it, and brought it back to where we were sitting. My friend then proceeds to light her cigarette, walk back to the other end of the bar and dropped the lighter back down in front of the angry woman...

The three of us watched our friend do this in total silence! She never asked to borrow the lighter or thank the angry woman after she had...

Once our friend was comfortably seated at her bar stool with her lit cigarette, the four of us just burst out into full laughter...

The angry woman was not pleased and she shouted, "That was incredibly rude!"

At which point my friend (the lighter thief) said, "Raise your hand if you're over 30?"

Well, as you can imagine, we lost our shit! We laughed so hard and so long that they threatened to kick us out of the bar...

The angry woman threw her money on the bar, stood up and left!

Well... karma is a bitch!

Flash forward: Today I'm driving to an audition that I really didn't want to go to.... But, because I'm on this kick to stay focused and positive... I woke up, showered, printed out my resume and attached it to my picture, MapQuested the directions, drank a cup of coffee, drove 23 miles into the valley in the pouring rain, searched for 10 minutes to find parking, went through the security checkpoint to get on the sound stage, filled out my paper work, and then the woman collecting our information asked to see my ID...

Me: "My Id? Why do you need that?"

Woman: "Oh, because we're only seeing actors 18-30 for this job..."

Me: "Oh, well my agent didn't tell me that..."

Woman: "How old are you?"

Me: "....thir... thirt... thirty.. thirty-one...."

Woman: "Oh, I'm so sorry... You can't audition for this."

Me: "Okay."

...I got in my car and at first, I was pissed! But then I just started laughing out loud like I did the day my friends and I were sitting in Vintage!

The fact is, I am now the thirty-something year old joke! Ha! But, it will happen to everyone! After all- growing older is better than dying!

...and hey, at least I got a good laugh at 8 AM!