I was sitting in the holding area of a film shoot that I am not in at the Cradle of Aviation Museum in Garden City, Long Island. When not working, why not drive someone else to work? My husband is in this film and I volunteered to get up at 6, be in the car at 8 and have him to his location in Garden City, LI by his 10 a.m. call time.

My husband is what we laughingly call “geographically challenged”. I often joke that he could get lost mowing the lawn. Early in our relationship we took a weekend in the Berkshires and I had occasion to require a drug store. (No need to go into details.) He valiantly offered to drive to town for me and I watched from the window as he pulled out of the driveway and turned right. Town was to the left. Twenty minutes later I watched his car speed past in the other direction. In 25 years, nothing has changed. To this day he can’t give directions to our house. His parents have lived in the same place since he was a child and he still calls me to check what exit to get off. I am his mid-night GPS, fielding calls from dark country roads when they close the Parkway. I navigate him home. It is difficult sometimes since he can’t really tell me where he is. He’ll call, yelling:
“I don’t know where I am!”
“Calm down. Look for a sign.”
“They closed the frickin’, goddamned... There’s a sign up ahead: a street sign.”
“Can you give me a hint? A town?”
I’ll get on the computer try to figure it out. It’s like playing “Where’s Waldo” on Mapquest. I must be good at it because I haven’t lost him yet. Sometimes I tell him to just keep driving. I stay on the phone until he gets someplace with a name I recognize. I now know every main route in Westchester & Putnam Counties.

But back to the current waste of an afternoon. It’s a short feature film; he has two pages of dialogue; I figured he’d be out by 2, the latest. I did not know at this point that they are shooting in 16mm. For those who don't know about film, this makes a difference. At 12:30 they broke for lunch and he had not even been seen by wardrobe.

I had already called everyone I know on Long Island – relatives, friends I haven’t seen in over 30 years – no one was home. What to do? I got in the car and started to explore the neighborhood. Museum Row. Hmmm, there must be something. The Marriott Hotel loomed in the distance. Hofstra University. Maybe I could sneak on to the campus and hole up in the library with free Wi-fi. I turn on the radio and, lo and behold, the Yankees are playing an afternoon game! I am okay for hours if I can just find someplace to watch it.

And that is how I end up at Hooters; a single, middle-aged woman with a laptop, drinking beer, eating a salad, staring at a 25 inch screen about 12 feet away with no sound (just the bad R&R music blasting through the restaurant) and wondering why the guy at the next table is staring at me. He’s in his 20s. Hasn’t he ever seen his mother at Hooters? His girlfriend meets him at the table and now they are both looking in my direction. What the *!&! are they looking at? I turn. There is a giant TV screen right behind me. I change my seat. Why squint?

It’s some guy named Matt’s birthday and the buxom waitresses in short-shorts have perched him on a chair, a menu in each hand and a roll of paper towels stuffed under his t-shirt to give him the breasts that are mandatory for the wait-staff. He is flapping his menus and we are clapping rhythmically as they rap a happy birthday, Hooters-style. It’s public humiliation in my book but Matt seems to be enjoying the attention. Every time a new customer enters, all the waitresses scream “Welcome to Hooooooterrrrrrs”, causing the hair on the back of my neck to stand up. But I can cope. I am reading Michael Kay’s lips & all the trivia on the screen. I order a salad and a Coors Light, the least offensive of three light options, and am safely ensconced before a 72 inch screen with my laptop and my new best friends: you. The Yanks score 4 in the 2nd inning. I will survive. I just hope they don’t go into overtime: the film crew, that is.