I stood in line for an hour to go to The Moth (but didn't get in)

Never Done: I stood in line for an hour to go to The Moth (but didn't get in)

The Moth is a storytelling series, where people tell true stories in front of a live audience. I've never been, but I've heard many of the stories from The Moth on This American Life. So I looked up their schedule, and put it my calendar about a month ago. It says on their website that doors open at 7, but you should get there an hour early to get a seat. So I dutifully got there at 6 PM, and thought I had a good place in line -- because I've seen the line go all the way around the corner from where I was standing. Heath joined me when they got off work, and we had a great talk, sometimes in the rain, sometimes eating dosa for white people, while we waited.

While in line, someone came down to tell us that they had just started doing pre-sales. It used to be that all sales were made at the door, but they just started pre-selling 50 tickets at twice the price, and they told us that since they had never done this before, they didn't know how to judge how many people from the line would get in. They told us they would come down the line later to update us, once the pre-sale audience showed up. This would probably be a good time to mention that every night has a theme, and that this night's theme was Betrayal. Really, do I have to even keep writing the rest of this blog post?

So yes, eventually the line started to move, and no, we did not get in, and yes, if they would have let in the fifty next people in line we would have just made it. And yes, a woman in line suggested we go somewhere and do our own storytelling session, on the theme of Betrayal: "They told us they would come down the line to update us!" Heath noticed that when the word came down that it was over, we weren't getting in, people didn't really leave. Instead, we stood around, saying, "Really? We don't get in? But, we came an hour early." New York, the city of dashed dreams. This is the stuff of poignant, life, first person, true story telling. But you know I'm persistent. You know I'll be out there again, 90 minutes early.

Here we are while our dreams were still intact:



And here we are, refusing to accept the truth: