Guest Blogger. Jessica Bern: THERE'S A TIME AND A PLACE AND THIS WASN'T IT

Over the weekend, I went to see a dance showcase. It was the work of 250 kids from inner city schools that had been studying dance as part of an after school program for the last year.

Of course the audience was made up mostly of various family members, so imagine my surprise when the lights began to dim and the father/uncle of one of these children decided at that very moment to get on his cell phone and call El Pollo Loco and put in a take-out order. The man spoke only Spanish but I know for sure he got two orders of chips, 2 somethings of guacamole (I'm guessing they were sides) and then proceeded to read out the numbers of what sounded like a either a credit card or the VIN number on his truck because there were A LOT of them, many of which he had to repeat over and over again because of the noise from the show that HAD ALREADY BEGUN.

Now if that wasn't bad enough, midway through the performance, the guy (late teens), sitting next to me went on to answer a call from what was clearly his girlfriend, with whom he proceeded to continue an argument that seemed to have started prior to show time.

GUY: I didn't call you like a b*th. I just said you were b**thing about me. I went to the party.....B**ch, listen to me, okay? I'm tellin you how... I gotta go, my Aunt is hittin me to get off.
You'd think that would be it, but no. This guy just hung up on a woman he's been screwing, who is of the belief that he called her a b**ch and hell if she gave a damn where he was or who he was with, this woman wanted an explanation so, for the next ten minutes the scene went as follows:

GUY: So what? You're like not into me now?......Well, what did you want me to do?.....No way, that's no way....

(Aunt hits his leg)

GUY: I gotta go. (Guy hangs up. Phone rings)

GUY: So where you at now? ....I'm not saying nothin....What? So you sayin you don't want me goin?" .....I'll go. I'll come pick you up. We can hang out..

(Aunt hits his leg)

GUY: I gotta go. (Guy hangs up. Phone rings.)

GUY: So do you want me to come or not?...What?...why you like hmmmm, like you don't know? You got some other dude?....Yeah? Well, Sabrina's a b**ch too..... Yeah, but so why you listenin to her and not me?.....

The Aunt hits his leg but this time the guy doesn't say anything and instead just hangs up the phone. Not but two seconds later the phone rings again but instead of answering it he FINALLY decides that perhaps it would be better to continue the conversation outside and so he, very politely, I might add, turned to me, excused himself, apologized and exited the theatre. I didn't say a word because I was both shocked and amused at this guy's audacity and was somewhat sorry to see him go because at this point I was curious to see whether or not these two were going to end up together.

Twenty minutes later the show ended and when Phoebe and I exited the theatre the guy was STILL on the phone. I purposely walked by him to see if he'd made any progress towards getting back into this girl's life and more importantly for him, her pants, but Phoebe was already dragging me across the street at 8PM telling me she was tired and therefore I should take her for ICE-CREAM.

Visit Jessica Bern and read stories of Jessica's Journey through her weekly visits to her therapist's office.