Random Occurances & Traffic Reports

Tomorrow is Jacob’s birthday. He and his best friend are going up to Big Sur for the weekend to relax so we won’t be working tomorrow. Jacob announced this to the front desk crew at The Casting Studios yesterday in a wink-wink fashion.

“Hey guys! It’s my birthday Friday but we won’t be working since I’m going out of town. So if you were planning on getting me a cake… I’ll be here tomorrow!”

So this morning, before our callback started, I spoke with the front desk to find out how we should plan this soon-to-be ordeal. Since our clients would be here all day and we’d undoubtedly be busy, we needed to figure out when we could squeeze in the birthday formalities. At that moment, we basically had 10 minutes free in which we could have brought out cake and sing Happy Birthday. It turns out they hadn’t even bought the cake yet. So there went that idea.

Realizing they hadn’t bought the cake, I asked if they’d get an ice-cream cake. Jacob loves ice-cream cake (as do I) and they sell it at the Ralph’s next door. In addition to it being easy because of the proximity of where it can be purchased, it’s not as expensive as Jacob’s other favorite cake option - Sweet Lady Jane.

Around 3pm, there was a lapse in our session where we had another 10 minutes to spare. So I called the front desk to see if they were able to do the cake presentation ordeal then.

“Sure. We’ll let you know when to bring Jacob back.”

By the time we were ready to start up again, I still hadn’t heard back from the front desk. As soon as Jacob went back into session, like literally when the door shut behind him, the front desk called me.

“Kathleen, we’re ready. Bring Jacob up front.”

Stymied in our attempts, I’m guessing the cake-lighting crew had to blow out the candles and put the cake away. But our next opportunity was not too much later in the day. All of a sudden, Liz Paulson (another casting director & friend with whom we work) came bounding over.

“I’m here to bring Jacob to the front for his cake.”

“Liz, I was going to bring him over. It’s no big deal.”

“Yeah, but how are you going to do it? It’s supposed to be a surprise. Do you have a good excuse?”

“Yes,” I lied.

“What is it?”

“What’s yours?” I’ll tell you , sometimes I’m so quick on my feet that I impress myself.

“I’m going to tell him I’m in the middle of a nervous breakdown and that he needs to come into my office so I can talk to him.”

“Liz. He’s in the middle of callbacks. His main clients are behind that door with him right now. There’s no way he’s going to go with you.”

“I’m going to tell him it’s only for 2 minutes.”

“No way, Liz. He’s never going to go with you.”

She shrugged her shoulders and went back to her session. Shortly thereafter, Jacob came out of the room again. I called the front desk to see if they were ready. They said they’d call me as soon as they lit the candles. After I got their confirmation call, I grabbed Jacob by the shoulders and said, “Jacob, come on. Let’s go. It’s time.”

I know it’s sort of anti-climatic but it’s not like it was going to be a surprise in the first place. I didn’t ruin anything. He’d been talking about it all day. He’d told the front desk the day before to get him a cake. And he was suspicious of everything going on around him all day for no reason.

Our friend Josh stopped by after lunch (pre-cake ordeal) just to say hi. He didn’t know anything about aforementioned cake ordeal and was just coming by to get some free lunch. (Josh is a human garbage disposal, vacuum cleaner style. That boy can eat more than anyone. In fact, if he’s not eating, those who know him are inclined to ask if something is wrong with him. It’s amazing how he manages to stay so fit and trim.) Jacob immediately assumed that Josh was there for the whole cake ordeal and didn’t believe our many protestations.

Normally when anyone at The Casting Studios has a birthday, someone gathers all the casting directors, assistants, camera operators and TCS staff members and gets them to congregate at the front desk. Then another person goes to get the birthday kid and leads him or her to the front desk under some sort of carefully planned ruse.

For example, one may say, “Listen, Roman is up at the front desk and he has a huge bulge in his pants on his left side. He was wondering if you could come take a look at it and tell him if you think it’s a hernia.”

So you see why everyone is so horrified that I didn’t make up some elaborate lie. That’s half the fun of it for them. Most of them are past, current, future or wishes-they-were actors, so they loooooooooove the DRAMA. But my mindset goes to the immediate situation at hand. - We’re busy. We have to deal with this whole birthday-inconvenience cake-ordeal. This is how to get it done most efficiently.

Okay, fine! I ruined everything!

When Jacob and I made it over to the front desk at the cake ordeal appointed time, it was like a ghost town. No one was there. So I just kept on walking back as if I were headed into our office so no one would see us just standing there like lost hitch-hikers, confused and alone. I didn’t want everyone else to feel bad that they hadn’t met cake-lighting deadline, or whatever. But Jacob didn’t follow my lead. He just stood there.

Finally, someone brought out a cake and started singing. That singing brought out more people from their offices and from down the hall so by the time he blew out the candles, the crowd wasn’t as thin.

Normally there are a few people photographing the event from different angles. I looked around and saw NO ONE WITH A CAMERA. So I grabbed one from the front desk and rolled up my sleeves and did the dirty work myself. Unfortunately, it was a polaroid camera so I can’t exactly post the photos here. I will do my best to get someone to scan them and send them to me.

So, the whole cake ordeal turned out to be pretty pathetic.

Yes, IT WAS ALL MY FAULT. I already admitted it. I’M FREEKING SORRY, OKAY?!

I’m going to go with the excuse that since my birthday falls just before Christmas, I’ve never gotten cake at school or work and don’t really know what it’s like and therefore I can’t be expected to know how to pull it off for someone else.

There, are you happy now?!

But, hey, I asked for ice-cream cake and we got regular cake. Clearly that was not my doing.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 8th, 2005 at 8:13 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.