February in Wisconsin can be Mighty, Mighty...

COLD.

Date line February 16 2008, Madison Wisconsin

It was a frigid February morning, the day I got out of prison… I had heard the news about a month earlier that there was to be an open audition for movie extras being held at the Monona Terrace Convention center in Madison… Just my luck, I was headed in that direction.

After being sprung from prison, I was given a parting meal, and put on a bus back home. Something about the outside food didn't set well with me... Maybe it was just nerves about what was yet to come.... Either way, it was going to be a long ride home...

We finally arrived in Madison around 2:30, I got off the bus and stretched my legs. It was good to be free of the confines of prison and bus... I decided to head across town and find out what this acting gig was all about. After all, my pockets were empty… and I didn’t have so much as two plug nickels to rub together... What did I have to lose?

Luckily for me, the clothes I had walked into prison with, were waiting for me when I got out. Vintage 30's suit and tie, overcoat and even my well worn felt fedora… I was dressed to the nines… My brown wingtips could have used a good shine, but nothing the back of my pants legs wouldn’t help rectify. I was just happy that the leather on the top wasn’t as worn as it was on the bottom… as I seemed to suck in every ounce of winter wet that I came into contact with through the quarter sized holes in soles of my shoes….

The sun was setting and the chill was getting worse. The winds picked up the closer I got to the lake, and the light snow whirled around my head and heals as I walked against the wind… With my head down and fedora pulled tight, I ignored the honks and waves of people passing by… I was on a mission… and I had just a half hour left to make the audition…

Stepping through the doors of the Monona Terrace, was like stepping back in time. I was ushered down stairs to the lower level of the Monona Terrace. The lower I went, the more it felt as if I was truly walking back in time... It was as if I had stepped off of the bus, and never left the hay day of the early 1930's. There were Guys and Dolls everywhere decked out and looking every inch they way they should. There was no mistaking it, I knew I had come to the right place.

I just followed the wave of people as everyone made a mad dash toward a room at the far end of hall, opposite the stairwell we had all just decended. They scurried on in mad rush, only to then vanish from sight… I started to wonder where they were all disappearing to, but needn't wonder to long… for as I rounded the corner I ran smack into a great wall of people… it was like the line for the soup kitchen… Only I was at the wrong end of the long, long, line.

According to my sources, they had a time limit set on this job… I felt like I was pressing my luck... Would everything simply disappear when the clock struck 4... Like that carriage in the Cinderella story, I was afraid at 4 O'clock on the dot, every thing was going to disappear… time was running out… I pulled out my pocket watch, and flipped the brass lid. It was 3:40 and it appears that I had just made it past the doors in time. Now if I could just pull this off… Rubbing my chin I started to second guess my decision to turn down that shave this morning…