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A Secret Surprise

Overheard on the bus:
An actual man, actually saying the actual words, “Can you hear me now?” into his cellphone. With absolutely no sense of irony whatsoever.

One morning three weeks ago, Todd called me to say he’d seen a poster on the way to work for Cats, it was going to be playing in Toronto, and didn’t I think we should take Paul, who will sit in his room for hours listening to the Broadway soundtrack, and - the first time he saw the filmed version at age three - got up and began to dance so hard that he finally had to sit down all sweaty and exhausted?

I said yes, oh yes yes yes, and Todd reserved the tickets right away. We were very pleased with ourselves. Two days later, Paul asked, “Can I have a surprise?”

I asked him what he meant.

“You know, can I have a secret surprise that I don’t know anything about?”

Todd and I exchanged glances over his head, and I said, “Sure. You can have one on December 14th.”

Then it was three weeks of guessing what the surprise might be, guesses ranging from “playing a computer game with Daddy” to “going to Ontario Place” (an amusement park that’s currently featuring an orgy of holiday consumption). He never came close to guessing the actual surprise, and so we headed out last night with Paul none the wiser.

We stopped for dinner at Terroni (thank you, anonymous person, for the recommendation) and while in my personal estimation Tessorro still holds the number one spot when it comes to pizza, I thoroughly enjoyed the atmosphere and the fresh (in the middle of December!) tomatoes on my spinich salad. And when my espresso macchiato arrived, I seriously considered sending Todd and Paul ahead and ordering another six or seven while I drooled in happiness.

Todd had wanted to blindfold Paul for the entire trip to the theatre, but I vetoed that on the basis of not wanting to give the other TTC riders the creeps. Paul, however, asked me to cover his eyes for the last block. So we put a scarf over his face, didn’t take it off until we were in the lobby, and were able to manoeuvre him right into his seat before he spotted someone else’s program and figured out why we were there.

Still, he had no idea it was a live performance - he was excited when he thought we were there to see the filmed performance. When he finally understood that we’d be seeing the real actors, he was beside himself. I went off by myself to find Paul a booster seat, thinking on the way that man, I could use one of those. Apparently the coat check guy thought so too, because he apologetically said he needed to “actually see the child”. He was sheepish when I came back laughing with Paul in tow.

A very tall man came and sat in front of me, while his short girlfriend sat to his left. She nudged him and pointed to the tall person in front of her, and they prepared to exchange seats. He folded his coat and put it on the seat and patted it. She sat in front of me, having gained two inches. “Your very own booster seat!” he said goofily, and I wished I had a big ol’ wool coat too.

You know how cocaine makes coke addicts wired and paranoid? I’m learning that coffee has the same effect on me. When the show began with a multitude of strobe lights, I sat frozen in terror that THIS was the moment we’d find out Paul had a sensitivity to strobe lights. This was after I’d decided that because I could feel other people walking on the balcony it would collapse at any moment. I consoled myself with the knowledge that we’d be on top. I mean, what if we’d been seated BELOW the balcony?

The first act was basically a rehashing of the filmed version. I was disappointed; it was kind of like a soda at McDonald’s when I really wanted an espresso macchiato at Terroni’s. By the time the intermission rolled around, it was past Paul’s bedtime and he was starting to feel sleepy. I asked him if he wanted to head home, but he said no, he didn’t want to miss Macavity.

The second act departed completely from the filmed version. The dancing, the acting, and the singing had all dramatically improved from the first act, and they’d included Growltiger’s Last Stand, which isn’t on the filmed version at all. The dancer playing Mr. Mistoffelees garnered three spontaneous bursts of applause from the notoriously reserved Toronto audience. Paul was entranced. “Memory” brought me to tears for the first time in ten years.

As we headed home, snowflakes started drifting down from the dark sky.

We were all sparkling.

© 2004 QN Podcast (formerly Quirky Nomads).