#55

This is a bit of a long one……………

Back in 2000 I flew to Dallas to work on a film.  Just a few days of work as the ‘singer at the bar’.  You don’t remember this groundbreaking role???  I’m offended!

Anyways, because of nightmare travel complications I had not slept for two days by the time I arrived in Dallas.  I flew in with a small bag and a guitar backpack and arrived to 500 degree weather.  No joke.  At least it felt like that!  So my rental car was a convertible “We left the top down for you because the air conditioning’s here take a while to kick in in this heat.”  Started driving and the open air felt like a hair dryer.  It was painfully hot!  It literally hurt to breath.

Arrived to my hotel and the parking lot was packed.  Walked to the counter and checked in.  Right as I turn around to walk to the elevator I hear screaming and cheering and booing.  The lobby FILLS with people, pushing and shoving and I quickly squeeze through some people  to get into the elevator.  The door is closing when someone screams “hold the elevator!”  I do and 10 ginormous men enter the elevator.  Squashing me in the middle.  Now you guys know me by now….I sometimes (well, most of the time) speak before I think.  Often mid sentence I think “really you idiot, are you really saying this?” and this time was no different.  Woman had to be pulled back by security so that the doors could close.  Feeling 2 feet tall next to these giants, my face was almost smashing the butts in front of me.  That’s how large these guys were!  “OK you’re all freakishly tall and black, you must be basketball players”  Really self!?  Did you really just say that out loud!!!????  They all crane their necks to see the dipshtick that just spoke.  Am I going to be killed?  “Really?” one of them speaks.  ‘Uh…..football?” I sheepishly ask.  They all start cracking up…Phew, not gonna die today.  “Yes we are football players.”  “What are you, blond with guitar on your back, dressed like a hippie? A pop star?”  Hahaha.  I explain I am in town filming.  They tell me they are playing a huge game against the Dallas Cowboys and to be careful “Little white pop Star.”  Yeah!  We are cool.  They are the ballers I am the pop star… No big deal just kickin it for 3 minutes with some NFL meat.

My floor arrives first and I bid them farewell.  Walk to my room and my key doesn’t work.  What a nightmare.  This always happens to me.  Now I have to fight through the insane crowd to get a stupid key card.  I walk back to the elevator and when it opens, they are all inside.  “Hey I’ve just been waiting here until an elevator with you guys on it opened.  I am actually a stalker.”  All of the ballers keys hadn’t worked either.  So on the ride down I learn that they are on a team called the Eagles.  “Sorry, I don’t watch football, but I’m sure you guys are great.”  I learn names and later find out that Donovan McNabb my new best friend is actually really famous!  The elevator doors open and people start screaming and push us.  “There is a lady on the elevator!!!  Stop pushing!!”  Oh best friends, guarding me and all.  I beeline through the crowd to get to the counter.  Get my key.  On the way back to the elevator I am stopped by security and not let into the elevator area.  My key card is not enough to prove that I am a guest of the hotel.  The boys walk by and one of them sees me.  “She’s with us” one says and I am let by.  “who’s that girl?” people say as I’m let past the human shields.

Once on the elevator, the guys tell me that people get really crazy the night before the game and to be careful if I go downstairs and leave the hotel.  We chat a few minutes more.  They are all actually really great guys.  I exit on my floor and am exhausted and longing for a bed.  I get the door open and am greeted with a sauna.  The air conditioning was broken in my room!  I almost cried.  You know that feeling when you haven’t slept and you get loopy and really emotional?  I was past that!  I go in anyway to drop off my things and call the lobby.  They can send up a repair man but it will be a few hours.  I open the window to see which is worse, they both are worse!

I had a friend whom I hadn’t seen in years who lived in Dallas.  I told her I was too tired to hang out when I had landed.   I called her back and asked her to come get me.  About a half an hour later, I head to the lobby to wait for her.  I walk to the elevator and wouldn’t you know, when it opens they are all on there again!  “HAHA.  Really?”  We have a nice chat.  They seem concerned that I am going out to dinner.  “People are getting really rowdy and drunk.  It might not be a good idea.”  They tell me to follow them while they all walk to the hotel lounge to hang out.  “There is an exit door in there and you’ll have an easier time getting out that door than fighting through the lobby.”  We hang out until my friend arrives.  They give me some of their room numbers.  “If you have trouble getting back in, call one of our rooms and we will get security to escort you in”  I run out and meet my friend and we have a wonderful dinner.  The whole city is buzzing about this game and there are fights and cheering all over the streets.  It was actually quite exciting.  I love when a city gets into something together.

We got back to the hotel and she had to drop me off a few blocks away.  I felt like I would pass out from exhaustion if I walked another step.  I made it into the lobby and the crowd was at a stand still.  It was as crowded as a mosh pit and just like a mosh pit, people did not want you cutting your way to the front.  “I am staying at the hotel, excuse me, I need to get to the elevators”.  I get to the front desk and they get take me a back way through the service elevators.  “We are so sorry about the crowds.  Also, we apologise because your air conditioning could not be fixed today.  We are sold out tonight or we would have given you another room.”  “Yeah!” Get to my room.  Holy moly- I’ve never slept in a sauna and I was about to.  I called my mom and told her I was in for the night.  “I met these football players, they are on a team called the Eagles and they are so nice.  I would have had a ton of trouble here in Dallas had I not met them.”  We are chatting when there is a knock at my door.  I answer and “it is some Eagles boys mom, let me call you back”.  I hang up and the guys say “sorry to bother.  Just wanted to make sure you got back safely.  We knew you were here in the city alone and just wanted to check on you.”  They also invite me to the game to sit in the sidelines!  “We leave in the morning and there is a family bus if you’d like to join us”  “thanks for the invite!  I’ve never been to a real football game before.  But I have to work in the morning, good luck, nice to meet you all, yada yada yada”.  Head back into my steam room and jump in the shower.  I come out soaking wet hoping that will make it not so hot and butt naked fall on top of the made bed and crash before my body hit the comforter.  57 hours awake and I instantly went into a DEEEP sleep.

I wake up to a man standing over my splayed nekidness with a flashlight scanning me saying “ma’am ma’am?  Excuse me ma’am?” he pokes me with the flashlight.  I jump up screaming and flail to find something to cover up with.  “I’m sorry!  We thought you were dead, Your mom called, uh we thought the Eagles had raped you, the producer said, uh I’m sorry, I’m sorry, your mom” another male voice says “Let’s go, We are very sorry!”.

What the BUTT!  I grab my phone and have 5000 missed calls from my mother and the producer.  I call my mother and scream at her.  “What is going on!!!!????” “You never called me after those football players came to your door and then you didn’t answer your phone!!  They were knocking at your door for hours!!!  I forced them to walk in and check if you were OK!!”  “I’M EXHAUSTED!!!  I’m going to bed!!!  GOODBYE!!!”.  EMBARRASSING!!!!!!!  The producer calls, “What is going on?  Are you drinking?  Your mother thinks you are hanging out with a football team.  What is really going on?”  “I was hanging out with a football team!” “Look you can be honest with me.  I can’t have someone who is drinking or something else show up on my set tomorrow!”  “What?  I’m tired.  I’m NOT drinking or whatever else you think and YES I WAS hanging out with the Eagles guys!”  “I will pick you up myself in the morning.  Sleep and you will explain while you are lying in the morning.  I will be there at 8 and you better be outside waiting and ready to work” click.

I went back to bed…I am going to beat my mother I thought as I fell back asleep.

I wake up the next morning feeling rested but very angry and VERY hot.  Get dressed and ready to go.  Grab my guitar and head to the elevator and wouldn’t you know who’s in there when it opens.  Yep, the ballers.  But this time they are all in suits and smelling good.  “Wow!  You guys dress up like this to drive to your games?  I never knew that”  If they only knew the staff thought they had murdered me in the middle of the night:)  hahaha.   The producer calls “They won’t let me in the parking lot” “what are you driving?” “A red BMW”.  I tell the security man that’s with the guys that my ride is in a red beamer and is not allowed to drive in.  He messages to the outside guys.  The elevator doors open and people smash us back.  It was pretty scary.  The other elevators had been filled with footballers too.  “Haylie is in the middle of us and she is getting hurt”.  They make a circle around me and some Cowboys fans start heckling and pushing them.  They walk me outside and to the car of the producer.  In the midst of all the pushing, one of the guys had grabbed my guitar and was holding it high in the air.  He put it in the backseat of the convertible.  The producer, who was sure that I was a lying drug addict up until this very second, sat there in shock as the Eagles boys opened my door and all hugged me goodbye.  “Wish you could see your first game today..It’s going to be a good one.”  “I’ll watch it on TV!  Nice to meet you guys”  “Hey be careful with her” one said jokingly threatening to the producer.  “Bye” and security gives us a clear way out.

The car ride to the set was amazing.  I love when someone thinks I am lying only to get proof and feel like an idiot!  He even said “I tried getting tickets and you turned down actually going and sitting with the team?!!”  “I am a professional what can I say?”