FAILSAUCE McAWKWARDPANTS

Miking people is an unusually awkward job. There are so many choices of situations for the techie to make things awkward. There's a whole lot of bras and skin and face-poking and really tight man-pants involved. Then, there are situations that happen every day (and some that don't.) Usually there’s the whole ‘under-shirt’ conversation, which usually goes like this:

ME: Mmmkay now, this has to go under your shirt. (It has been this way now for seven days.)

ACTOR: **Blank stare**

ME: Um. Do you want to do this, or shall I?

ACTOR: Oh, let me. **Struggles, leaving poor techie to awkwardly stand there and occasionally brush shoulder of actor or randomly feel up mike box under shirt**

Of course, from here, there are two kinds of actors: The suave, usually younger, ones who can handle it all by themselves during costume changes, and then the older, helpless ones, whose skin I see entirely too much of. The women I’m okay with, because it’s women, and they’re easy to talk to and stuff, even when they randomly decide to take their shirt mostly off in front of an entire theatre. My brain basically goes, okay, bra. Okay, clip. Awesome. and then it’s done for the day and has a tea party, unless said actress is a little girl, which is another thing entirely. Then I feel like I’m assaulting them. This is not good for your self esteem.

But men. Jeez. This gender really does not work well with mikes. First of all, they’ve got icky skin. I’m sorry, but they just do. I really do not enjoy being the face-sweat bitch and carrying around alcohol swabs with which to attack faces with, which is awkward for both parties. Excuse me, but your glands are interfering with my mike…and then I feel bad because they look at me all condescendingly like, woman, when is it your place to be all up and wiping my face like I am a baby butt? Go back to your corner, foo’. Then I’ve got to tackle the tape-placement: Too close to eye, or on part of hair? Because surgical tape is fricking surgical tape, and it doesn’t want to stick to anything BUT hair, so basically I cringe internally while taping guys, because I’m gonna have to be the one to rip their whole sideburn off later.
Then there are the people that it’s just awkward to mike, even if they can handle their own mike box placement and everything. Like one certain person at a play I’m working: let’s just call him Gorgeous Man. Generally I don’t have to mike him, but the two times I have in the past two days, there have been some super witty conversations.

ME: **tape tape**

GM: **stares off into distance**

ME: Eww. Your hair is gross.

GM: Sorry, it’s just water.

**Silence**

ME: *thinking* There is no friggin’ way this is just water. What the hell is this??? It’s all sticky and gross….okay….not gonna say that out loud…but seriously. Is this bacon grease? Or lard or something? Do men still gel their hair with that? Or is that just in Kentucky? Why do you ruin your hair with bacon-lard, oh Gorgeous Man?

In the end I settled for, “Okay, you’re done.”

Returning to the helpless older ones, let me just tell you. I have a story that can only be played out in pictures, it was so…well. It played out like a bad movie.















…So yeah. Add that to Charlie dying on Lost (But being miraculously revived!!---but he still died, which was traumatizing) and I’m in hysterics. Add THAT to a conversation on man-nipples, some drawings of naked stick-figure ho’s, a lot of unnecessary tech love drama, and I start to wonder why I take this every day.