I continued to go on TV shows. Good Fun!
I called Jen the week I moved into Speed’s. She was
disappointed that I was moving out of Man’s and that I wasn’t ok with watching
him sleep with prostitutes. I guess she was hoping to live vicariously through
me. My bad! She told me that she had a feeling I liked Speed that’s why I was
moving in with him, she even assured me that I was going to sleep with him.
Well, I had no intentions to and even if I did, it was none of her business.
Sorry I didn’t sleep with your ex that you tried hooking me up with. My bad on
that too!
One morning, after work, I had a strong feeling to go to the
Queen Latifah show. I had never been before. It’s a little ways away; a little more than an hour by bus. I had work
that night, I thought it best to go to the first show taping at 11, so that I
could get in a few hours’ sleep thereafter. I took a quick shower and headed to
Sony Studios in Culver City. I was excited to finally have plucked up enough
courage to go to the show. I was excited to be seeing the Queen for the first
time. I remember in South Africa, my acting agent always sent me for Queen
Latifah type roles. One of the casting directors in Randburg used to call me
Queen Latifah. It was about time I saw this person with my own eyes! I followed
my GPS, took the first bus across the street from my place, then another one
thirty minutes away. That one took me up to 5 minutes away from Sony Studios.
Everything is exciting to me here. A lot of the times when I go somewhere, it’s
my first time, so yeah.
I arrived there, mind you I didn’t have a ticket. I had
applied for a ticket to the show but not for that day. I was just following the
feeling I had inside that day. When I arrived there, there were two long lines
that went on forever. I asked if I could hang around until they’re done loading
audience, to see if they need one more person. They told me I could. There were
other people there that were doing the same thing. One of them was a lady I had done background with before. She was a nice
lady, Peruvian. She was there with her husband that day. They were also
standing by. I was so excited to see a familiar face! Her husband is pleasant
too. He’s American, he had recently been to Africa on a three month
Safari/Business trip. He showed me pictures. It’s amazing the kind of pictures
non Africans come up with from Africa. I don’t know anybody from Africa who has
those kinds of pictures. Anyway, we all waited outside for the longest time.
Eventually, they took in all the ticket holders then they
came to us and told us that they had a full house, they would take us in if we
wanted to wait in the holding room and watch the show on tv. I thought to
myself, I have work tonight, I haven’t slept a wink, I didn’t come here to
watch Queen Latifah on TV. What the heck is this? I asked my soon to be friend
if she though I should wait, she told me yeah, let’s all, we will get laptops
today. She was just saying. I thought, sure, why not. We went in. The guest was
The D Lister herself, Kathy Griffin. Love her! Alas, I only got to watch her on
tv! But just knowing that I was in the next room to her, was nice enough. You
take what you can get, right? She played some games with Queen, one of them had
her revealing a Christmas gift for everybody in the audience. EVERYBODY WON HP
LAPTOPS! The audience was jumping up and down for joy. We were not part of the
audience. We had been told beforehand that we were not going to get any of the
gifts. I tell ya, it ain’t fun watching people win gifts. A few minutes later,
one of the Audience co-ordinators came to us and told us WE WERE ALSO GOING TO
GET LAPTOPS. In fact, we were going to get all the gifts that day! It was the
Christmas show! We all won up to more than $1700 (R17 000) in prizes! Can
you imagine! I couldn’t believe my luck! Of course my friend never let me hear
the end of the fact that it’s because of her that her husband and I stayed that
day. And she foresaw that we were going to win laptops. We got HP laptops,
Silver necklaces with the piece sign pendant, a face cleansing thingy, a nice
smelling candle in a great reusable candle stick, a nice knife from a TV Chef
who was the guest that day, ponchos, cashmere blankets, pots, one year Netflix,
tons of popcorn, the best in the country, that was shipped to our addresses, a
tower of snacks, that was shipped too, I got mine last week; all kinds of
decadent snacks, nuts, choc brownies, popcorn etc, a Bluetooth speaker shower
head, that’s like the coolest thing ever, never again will I not hear music
while in the shower, what else? That’s all I remember. It was an awesome day.
We left late that day, fortunately my friend’s husband’s friend was going to
pick them up, they gave me a ride to my place.
I was so late, I got
home, took a quick shower and begged Speed to give me a ride to work. He did,
that was nice of him. That night he sent me a text telling me not to ask him again blah blah blah. See
if I care, I just won a ton of gifts from the Queen Latifah show. I felt like I
had just been to the Oprah show that day. I told Client that night when he
asked me how my day was and what I did.
I had since been two more times to the Queen Latifah show,
one of those episodes, we won snakeskin iPhone 5 cases worth $150. The following one,
the guest was Trace Adkins (sp???). Love him and his amazing baritone from
Celeb Apprentice. He performed Little Drummer boy. We got the CD and Queen
Latifah’s CD as a gift that episode. I played
little drummer boy all week long. And the week after! The following day,
I went to the Chelsey Lately show (E! If you have Cable or DSTV). Guess who the
guest was? Trace again! By then I was singing along to the song, he didn’t
perform but they had it playing the whole time before and after the show. It
was a nice treat to get to see him two days in a row!
My colleagues were always late, night shift is the only
shift that worked 12 hours, the other two shifts split the other 12 hours
amongst each other. I always showed up on time, I use public transport so you
have to be early. I would sometimes sit on the bench outside Client’s place and
smell the roses while waiting for my clock in time. Day shift would be up to 30
minutes late relieving me in the morning. It wasn’t cool. Client didn’t do much
about it. He had to have someone there at all times, so I had to wait for my
relief. My first week there, he paid me for the overtime. Second week, no such
luck. When he didn’t pay me, I told him I would no longer be able to stay
longer than my already long 12 hour shift.
I got booked to do background work by an agent I have been
dying to work for for a while. I was going to be off the following day. I
finished work at 8am, would have to go home, more than an hour’s trip, get
changed, then head to the studio. My call time was 9am. I was never going to
make it. Before I committed myself, I thought I’d get to work first and ask
Client if I could leave early the following day. I asked him and he said yes. I
was so happy. I texted the agent back and told here I would be there. I was so
glad to finally get booked by this agent, I thought I wanted to make a good
first impression so that she could keep booking me. Who knows? Maybe I would
get to quit that lousy job and just do background work. Something that feeds my
soul. Client had friends over, they had their ‘bible’ study group. They left a
couple of hours after I got to work. Client called me over to his room, he told
me that he just remembered that he will need me there the following morning, I
won’t be able to leave early. WHAT? I told him, I was sorry but he had already
agreed and I had committed myself and I wasn’t about to cancel on that agent. That
was the last thing I needed! He got excited and started yelling, talking about
but this is your job, it has to come first! You can’t leave me here by myself!
If you are not going to stay until 8 tomorrow morning, you might as well leave
now! He started making phone calls to his friends and everybody. He has a baby
monitor so I heard everything from the other room. He was telling everybody
that I wanted to neglect him, he wanted them to come in and take over blah blah
blah. I don’t think anyone was available at such short notice. Thing is neglect
is a big offence in that line of work. I could lose my licence if he reported
me. He doesn’t have anything else going on in his life, he would totally report
me to the Health Dept.
He called me back to the bedroom and asked if I was really
going to desert him the following morning. I was fuming! I hated the position
he put me in. I told him I needed a minute to think about it. That to me was
the final nail in the coffin. I knew for sure after that day that I was on my
way out. Out of desperation, I texted Speed, told him the story, he told me
that he was willing to pick me up that night if I wanted to quit with immediate
effect. I told him that I would work that night, I thought it was better if I
was going to work my entire shift but I needed him to pick me up the following
morning at 8. He told me he would make an exception. That was very nice of him.
He offered to bring me a change of clothes, which was even better. He really
went out of his way for me that night. He was on the phone with me trying to
find an outfit for me for the following, he couldn’t find matching socks for
me, so he lent me a pair of his own socks. He even brought my wig haha. It was
really very nice of him.
I told Client that I would stay the entire shift. He thanked
me and apologies for the inconvenience. I didn’t care. It was too late. I was
so tired that night and just drained from everything. I put him to bed and
passed out in the other room. He called me in the middle of the night. Apparently
he called me more than ten times and I didn’t hear him. When I heard him, I
thought it was the first time! He told me he was freaking out, he thought I had
left. I told him I had given him my word that I would stay that night, and that’s
what I was going to do. He called me again after a couple of hours and I didn’t
hear him haha. It was bad, I was really tired that night. And he needed more
more than he normally does at night.
That morning, I used his wet wipes to freshen up and rushed
out at 8:00am on the dot. Speed was waiting for me outside with my change of
clothes. He got out of the car and let me change, had a smoke, got back in the
car and wanted to talk about us. Looorrrddd! Not that dead horse again! He took
me to set. When I got there the job was cancelled. We still got paid but it
didn’t happen after all. I was still glad I made it! From then on, I was
officially in that agent’s books. Yippee!
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