i only wear white when it rains

Nick Cannon: Actual Size

When the Mahaffey Theater offered free tickets to yesterday’s taping of “America’s Got Talent,” I gladly accepted the opportunity to see judge Howard Stern and the contestants he might draw. A former Tiger Woods mistress refilling a maple syrup dispenser while yodeling through her trach tube perhaps? One could only guess what Howard would do to resurrect the old days of being fined by the FCC.

I ordered the tickets online while trying to suppress a recurring nightmare I have that I’m standing naked under a floodlight in Howard’s former E! Studio while Gary measures my inner thigh fat with calipers, Fred administers an IQ test, and Ralph suggests I press charges against my hair stylist.

The taping information on the tickets was vague with the exception of a dress code policy that rivaled that of an Arab country.

It specified NO open-toed shoes!! Or heels!! with enough all caps and exclamation points to make me wonder why I’d consider associating myself with such American keyboard abuse.

I can only imagine this is because of (justified) fears that Floridians don’t get pedicures with any regularity and should Nick Cannon interview any members of the studio audience their high heels could further emphasize that he is shorter than his infant twins.

Nevertheless, I slipped into flat-as-my-shoes-get Mary Janes and a simple black Betsey Johnson dress just in time for the 5pm taping.

Or was it that I was to arrive at 5pm for a later taping?

Line up at sunrise for the 5pm taping?

It was all very unclear, and the search for shoes in my closet that were less than four stories tall left me frazzled and unable to count out five dollar bills for parking.

Nana insists these are silver. I thought they were gold, but I think we can all agree that their public appearances should be limited to quick trips to Walgreens to refill her thyroid medication.

We arrived at the Mahaffey at 4:59pm. Because that’s how Nana rolls.

Yes, in her never-ending quest to be the cool mom who’s not the least bit offended by irreverent assholes like Howard Stern (or her own children), Nana joined us after managing to locate gold ballet flats somewhere in the bowels of her own closet. Or perhaps, from the looks of it, the local Goodwill bin.

“What?!” she said after noticing my brother’s face twist up in a grimace similar to that of someone who just licked battery acid. “I don’t have a lot of closed-toed shoes that are flat.”

Bottom line: if we were going to wait in a queue that choked the perimeter of both the Mahaffey Theater and Dali Museum like a noose, then we were not getting turned away for making Nick Cannon look like a Pygmy.

Worst Groupie Ever

This might come as a shock given the Mary Janes, but I am not a good groupie.

For instance, I’ve been fairly obsessed with Dave Matthews Band my entire adult life. They DJ’d everything from my drunken hook-ups in college to my wedding. A good litmus test for my boyfriends involves putting their iPod on shuffle. If DMB isn’t playing by the third song, I’m well within my rights to end the relationship. And during my pregnancy, I swore that “One Sweet World” actually made my daughter kick. But when DMB comes to Tampa each Summer, I find myself saying things like: “I dunno guys … the amphitheater is pretty fucking hot in July.”

That being said, because a sitter was already being paid $15 an hour for me to be at this taping, I felt I owed it to my forehead to at least get a basal cell carcinoma while standing outside in the blazing hot Florida sun.

America’s Got a Bunch of Idiots … Namely Me

It didn’t take long for me to notice that even though hundreds of people were waiting in line, only a few who may or may not have been wearing pirate costumes (I was hallucinating and close to passing out at this point) were escorted inside.

TV crew members walked by the line suggesting we wave, look at the camera, don’t look at the camera, and squish closer together to determine who remembered deodorant and who didn’t.

Me standing in line

Several pictures were taken, and I can only imagine I looked like a glob of freshly poured asphalt having stupidly obliged the dress code which clearly screamed: DARK COLORS APPRECIATED!!

As 5:45pm approached, and a total of two people were relieved from the steaming cauldrons of waiting purgatory, my brother joked that maybe there wasn’t even a show.

“This is just a sociological experiment to see who would actually stand here and for how long,” he suggested, while giving me a look that said, “I was ready to bolt 44 minutes ago, for the record.”

But here’s the tricky part: there comes a time when your fears of becoming a total moron are overruled by the investment of sweat that’s dripping down your back.

Sure, the rational part of me yearned to say “fuck this” and pass out in a puddle of perspiration on my couch at home instead, but the other sunburned, very dehydrated part of me that spent an afternoon with a leaf blower trying to unearth these not-so-flats was pretty determined to see Howard Stern make somebody cry, dammit.

Luckily for my electrolyte balance, at about 6pm, the crew who pretended to be too important to answer questions, avoiding all eye contact and pressing their earpieces further into their ears as if receiving life-saving information, was finally finished taking pictures of the sweat cascading down our ass cracks.

It was now time to address the crowd and Nana’s 14kt gold lamé flats that shone in the afternoon sunlight like a beacon of bad fashion:

“Sorry guys. We’ve already filled the theater. You’re going to have to come back tomorrow.”

There were other words said, but it’s amazing how much faster your heels can turn when you’re not wearing any.

I was already buckling my seatbelt in the car when the crew promised priority passes and details about the next taping that basically translated into:

“We used you all to make this venue look completely packed. Made you stand out here for AN HOUR knowing the theater was already at capacity with 1,200 people who presumably knew enough to line up here last week. We took pictures of you waving like imbeciles for our season premiere and/or a Summer’s Eve douche commercial.”

In summary, America’s Got Talent at pissing off people and making them question the effectiveness of their deodorant.

Howard Stern Can Still Make You Cry

Beth Stern not at all wearing flats or DARK COLORS!!

Amazingly, I didn’t even need a judge on a reality TV show to remind me of my genetic inferiority.

As I sat outside at Parkshore Grill later that evening, Howard’s beautiful wife Beth turned up looking completely gorgeous, thin, and in no need of Photoshop.

So thanks a lot, America’s Got Talent.

Nothing quite boosts one’s self-esteem like sweating off all your makeup right before standing in almost-flats next to a 6-foot-tall supermodel.