Oranges! Snakes! Scurvy!

We ran out of oranges today.

It was the second show in a matinee-plus-evening performance lineup. Bob and David consumed their oranges during the matinee's intermission, as is their habit.

(Publicly, I don't cotton to their supersitious habit of consuming citrus fruits during intermission. What, are we fending off scurvy or something? Did Mommy forget to pack us our peanut butter and jelly sam'iches? But privately, I'm starting to come around to the idea. I already quaff copious quantities of flavored mineral water and what-not, and I still find myself pretty damn thirsty in Act II. And my own custom of wolfing down chocolate chip cookies during intermission, for some inexplicable reason, isn't catching on with these two, nor is it doing anything for my thirst. And these two pogues are always twice as quick as I am when it comes to getting dressed after the show and stuff. Now, I say that's because I have oh maybe seventy-nine thousand costume changes compared to their cumulative six. I may be exaggerating there a little bit, but still... it's making me look bad. The director already thinks I'm some kind of somnolent manatee who smells funny. At this point, whatever I can do to improve my image around here, the better, and if that means I have to take up some cockamamie orange-eating custom endemic to these parts, then so be it.)

Bob and David, the quivering pansies that they are, go all teary-eyed and trembling at the thought of having to do a full-throated show with a full, uproarious house and all with no oranges for their intermission snackies. "The dried-out sod leeches the moisture from our supple throats" they whine. I exchange an indulgent glance with Freda, our Stage Manager whose honeyed commands I've seen many a mortal obey with the desperation of doomed desire.

Fortunately for Bob and David, Freda's gallant devotion to her duty wins my castmates their coveted oranges, which she picks up from the next door Deli (home of the finest roast beef melt subs this side of eternity, incidentally). "Ah, thanks, now we can go back to arranging our things so precisely that we can slip effortlessly out of our costumes and into our streetclothes, like so many corn snakes freshly awoken from their winter hibernation, and quickly shedding their rimy, worn-out skins."

I shrug and steal some orange slices. And the show goes on.