O What a Day

Unless you’ve been living under a rock (or somewhere in the Northern Hemisphere) you’d know that Oprah was in town. My town. I tried desperately to get tickets to see her show outside the Opera house. I’d given up hope, but I still wanted to be part of her trip to Australia.

I went down to circular quay the day of the filming, right by the Opera House (dubbed the Oprah house). I didn’t make a lot of money, and I was getting upset watching all the people with their Oprah bags walking past.

After lunch I went to see what was going on. There were two massive queues outside the Opera House; one for ticket holders and one for us regular folk. I joined the latter. I asked the woman in front of me what the line was for. She wasn’t exactly sure. Typical, 1,000 people in a queue and no one knows what for. There were 100’s of people in front of me and the line didn’t seem to be moving. The whole exercise seemed pretty pointless, but I figured it was worth a shot.

The best thing about waiting in a long line is meeting all the people around you. My favourite was a woman in front of me. She was determined. While I was being uncharacteristically pessimistic, she was certain we’d get in to the limited viewing spaces on the side. She saw people pushing in to the line.

“I’m going to say something”

“Just leave it honey” said her husband

“Look at those policemen not doing anything” she said ignoring him

“It’s not worth it” he tried

“I’m going to say something” she said again and marched off

She came back looking smug. The people in our section of the line applauded her efforts. Minutes later it happened again; another woman pushed in.

“Leave it” said the hubby

“No, I’ve had it. It’s not in the Oprah spirit”

She stormed off again, but this time, she didn’t come back. The hubby got a phone call not long after.

“She’s in” he said grimly.

I felt a mixture of shock, admiration and betrayal as I realised that the heroic woman who had stopped people pushing in, had just pushed in.

The queue was moving slowly by this time, but it was moving nonetheless. It looked like I might actually get there. A security guard walked by.

“All children to the front” he yelled “all children to the front with their parents”

I watched jealously as mothers with prams made their way to the front. Then it hit me. What’s a child? I swung around to the people behind me.

“Wait” I said anxiously “How old is a child?”

“Under 18” said one woman

“That’s you!” said another

“Yeah, it is, isn’t it?” I said dreamily

I grabbed my polka dot headband, put it on and swung around again.

“How old do I look?”

“16” said the first

“No, 15 and a half” said another

I turned to run towards the front. This was it. I was going to meet Oprah. She was probably going to pull me up on stage; we’d totally click. She was going to invite me to dinner, then I’d replace Gayle as Oprah’s best friend.

I stopped halfway to the front and ran back to my place in the line.

“Wait” I said to the crowd of women “who wants to be my mother?”

A 25 year old Asian women raised her hand.

“I’m sorry” I said sympathetically “I don’t think that’s going to fly”

I looked at a woman behind her. She looked a bit like my Mum. Perfect.

We held hands as we introduced ourselves. I skipped a little. We were both thinking how wonderful it would be when we met Oprah. That didn’t quite happen. What did happen was my fake mum and I got ushered past the Oprah stage, waaaaaaaay out back behind the Opera House where a giant screen was waiting. We watched Oprah on TV, but we were so close. All that stood between me and Oprah was a giant building and 6,000 people. It was as close as I’m ever going to get, but if you ask me, it was pretty damn close.