New Poll - OUCH!

Here's one I'll be telling me' grandkids......

I was doing a show at Hayman theatre Curtin University (Perth for those eastern states people ;-) ) and was driving into perth to pick up some stuff on a Sat. Morning before heading into the theatre for the first show of two that day.

I won't go into details about the accident itself (I will for me' grandkids LOL ). Suffice it to say that some idiot nearly wiped me off the face of the planet. I got away Physically clean. No cuts, bruises, etc. Just a little shock. I was taken into emergency just to be sure and the first thing on my mind? ------ The show!!!!! I was asking staff to call Hayman theatre and tell them about me.

Well, they called my parents and because of some stupid clause somewhere they were not able to tell them my condition, just that I was in hospital and that I was worried about the show. My parents called the theatre and told them what they could. A Stand-in was brought in for the first show.

My parents turned up, I was given a clean bill of health and I insisted on attending the second show that afternoon. By the time I got there, the show had just started. I burst into the green room where some stage crew were seated. "Oh, hi there Jeff. How are you? Heard you had an accident." Very casual you know. Chit-Chat.

At that point, a group of girls from the cast were animatedly yaking as they came down the stairs from the change room. They immediately went dead quiet when they noticed me. Paused for a second, then literally screamed their way back up the stairs.

"What the?" says I.

"Oh, they think you're dead." Says the Stage Manager.

Great. It seemed that the Director had passed on my parents message verbatim and the cast had then assumed that as the Hospital had NOT been prepared to give out any information that it must have been pretty serious, even fatal.

Now, most of the cast were on stage and were unaware that I was there. Two cast members were happy to see me and these were to two others with whom I would make my first appearance that afternoon. I was dressed in an old, dark suit, wearing a gangster style hat. Pretty morbid already. But wait there's more.

The first time most of the cast were to see me that afternoon was propping up the rear-end of a coffin!!!!! The expresions on their faces were absolutely priceless, and to their credit (most of them) they carried on like troopers occasionally casting the occasional shocked look in my direction.

It was one experience I shall never ever forget.

Jeff "Staying Alive" Watkins