Cheap thrills

Jessica and I have been getting into all sorts of wacky hijinks lately.

On Monday, we were truly exposed to the shady underground network of knockoff purse sellers in Chinatown. Jessica's friend was visiting for the day and she knew how to find these sellers. This man led us up a set of stairs in a dingy office building where we went to a locked room that was filled with knockoff bags. Jessica and I were a bit wary and never would have gone with the guy if her friend hadn't been telling us it was okay. I was scared that we were going to be kidnapped and shipped back to China for marriage (I read a scary article about that).

After the knockoff bag adventure, we went to the Chinatown jewelry district. I don't think I could ever be a jewelry salesperson in Chinatown. Aside from my lack of expert proficiency in the Chinese language, I'm horrible at math. You see, there's a tag price on the piece of jewelry, but that's never the actual price. When I ask the salesperson how much the piece is, she whips out a calculator and punches in a bunch of numbers. At the end, she furtively slips the calculator over to show you the actual price of the jewelry, which is at least half off the tag price. This value does not account for haggling. Jessica wanted to buy me a pair of earrings since she was buying a ring, hoping to have more sway because she was buying two pieces. The tag said the earrings were $190 and they were offered to us for $68. Jessica said it was too expensive, and the woman lowered the price to $65. Jessica said the only price she would pay was $50. When the woman wouldn't lower the price any further, I whispered to Jessica, "Say you don't want them anymore." Jessica said so and the price dropped to $55, and in the end, we got them for $50.

We also went to TKTS today to buy tickets for a Broadway show. Jessica has visited NYC so many times before, but has never had the opportunity to see a show since we're always bound in family obligations. That hasn't changed much, but we're only bound about half of the time in family stuff. It helps that we're not all staying together in the same place. This morning, we showed up at the South Street Seaport TKTS location fifteen minutes before opening. There were about twenty people in front of us, but the line moved very quickly. We got our first choice of "The Producers" and got awesome orchestra seats at half price to boot!

We were so excited to see the show. When we were seated, we flipped through the playbill and were ecstatic to find that Richard Kind and Roger Bart were playing the lead roles. Actually, we don't refer to Roger Bart by his name. We refer to him as "George," his character on Desperate Housewives. Jessica has a little beef with the character because she feels he gives pharmacists a bad name. Everything's all right now, as we love "George" because he's adorable and sings wonderfully.

Anyways, "The Producers" did not disappoint, what with all the great things everyone says about it. How could I not enjoy a show that described Adolf Hitler as the "German Ethel Merman?" I had a great time and enjoyed the show despite the Eric Estrada-esque guy who would not sit still for the entire performance.