The Tap Dancer in Gristede's

"TAKE A HIKE, LADY!!" I yelled. "Get away from me!"

I was trying to buy some produce at Gristede's, and a woman kept bumping into me. Every which way I shopped, she would cross paths with me. She was wearing her tap shoes. All she wanted was attention, and those kind of people bug the Hell out of me. She was chatting very loudly with a woman near the cottage cheese, knowing full well the entire store could hear her every word. She mentioned that she was interpreting tonight, and she was asked to wear tap shoes.

According to her, the Roundabout Theatre's revival of Streetcar Named Desire at Studio 54 now features a tap dancing ASL interpreter. Cool concept, I thought, but each time she passed me, I grew more incensed by her smarmy clicks and her mindless FTS. (Final Tableau Smile.) Starved for attention, she couldn't have been much younger than 43, and I think she was following me. I was so completely wigged out by her presence, I almost had an anxiety attack near some avocadoes.

The truth is, I'm getting overwhelmed again. I owe substantial amounts of money to credit card companies. I'm really getting tired of it. And the commercial I worked at 6 months ago was recently picked up for another cycle which gave me a little windfall. That would be good news if I lived in Blair, NE, but I don't. I live in New York. As a freelance actor, I'm usually good at ignoring the inconveniences of real life like bills, but I barely made rent this month, and as a result, I'm losing my kindly spirit and sense of humor.

The bitter irony is I'm actually doing better than 50% of the other actors here in NYC whom I see daily, so who knows how they are earning their living, the point is, I'm broke. This is the dreaded 'dry spell' which tends to happen every year, but I really don't know what I should do next. And I'm feeling that sentiment right down to the hollows of my beautifully sculpted manly frame which once earned a hunk of change on a runway in Korea. I'm thinking, "bring on the fucking 9-5 job, please!! I'd like to pay my bills."

Feeling guilt because of my yelling, I apologized to the Tap Dancer on my way to the checkout. I asked her to dedicate a Maxi-Ford or two to me this evening. She didn't say much in response, but kept dropping FTS bombs, and my anxiety finally got the best of me. "Fight Flight," I thought, while I messed up her hair and yanked loose the oversized scrunchee in her hi-slung pony tail. I screamed, "Get out of my way!" while running from the Tap Dancer and the Gristedes, and never purchased a single item of produce.