The Tampon Run

When I first got into this business, I landed an internship with a husband and wife production team that shot commercials. I was super stoked because I really wanted to get into the commercial market, but had never had the opportunity to do so. I knew that my job would be pretty much whatever they needed me to do, and I was ok with that. Then one day, I get a call from the wife, who says she needed me to pick up a few things on my way to the location. The list included tampons. At this point, I should probably point out that I'm male, and I'm an only child. I had managed to get to the age of 25 without ever having to purchase feminine hygiene products. I let her know I would stop at a store and would be in shortly.

I walked in to the grocery store and start grabbing the other items on the list, and then head for the "all things female" aisle. It was at this point that I realized that she didn't really specify what kind and there were seemingly hundreds of options. There were super duper ones, and little tiny ones, and sporty ones. I had no idea what to get. So, in the middle of the store, I called her back. I can't possibly express how awkward that phone call was. She told me what kind she wanted and I immediately grabbed them and headed for the check out. The best part of this awkward story is that the checkout girl ringing up my stuff, picks up the tampons and says, "Heavy flow kinda day, huh?"

Needless to say, I had a hard time looking at my boss in the eyes for awhile.

The Sex Offender

 "Take him to Buffalo Wild Wings and then go with him to buy underwear...he didn't bring any with him." Those were my instructions for the day being a PA on the daytime talk tv show I was on. I had just graduated college and it was my first real job in the industry. First, let me tell you that the man I was referring to is a convicted sex offender for exposing himself at a school yard and a possible child molester. He was coming on the show to take a lie detector test to see if he had indeed committed a sex act on a child.

"I don't think I feel comfortable hanging out with him all day by myself", I told my Producer. But I was reminded that it was my job as a PA to entertain him until show time. $8.75 an hour to entertain a sex offender?! WHAT IS MY LIFE?!?! So, sure enough we went to lunch and then shopping at Target to buy him boxers. He even wanted my opinion on what pair to get. (He ended up buying Guitar Hero boxers in case you were interested). Good grief.

Fast forward a year, and this man called me from jail to see how I was doing (I don't even know how he got my cell phone number). The joys of working in talk TV!

The Fake Weed Tester

The last PA job I had before moving into the Audio Department, I was on a feature in south Florida.  One day, we were shooting a house party scene where we had four actors getting high on the couch. While we were looking at all of the different kinds of fake weed the director had purchased, one of the actresses somehow talked me into trying them all to see which one was less harsh on the throat. If you asked me ten years ago if I would be making a living testing fake weed for a overly sensitive actress, I would have laughed in your face.

After trying all of them, not only did I feel light headed, but I got a massive headache that would not go away. I did, actually, feel worse for the actors who had to smoke this crap for 3 hours while they were shooting the scene.

The Dress

Mrs. Portman is not the actress in the story. I just like this picture.

I still actually have to ask myself if this really happened to me. And none of my friends believe it. One day, as part of the AD team, I was designated to babysit our lead actress for the day. I won't give you her name, but I'll say that she is probably near the top of most guys' lists of actresses they are allowed to cheat on their wives with. She was hot. Like unbelievably hot. And I was getting paid to spend the whole day with her.

When I arrived at her trailer to introduce myself, some of her entourage was hanging around outside smoking. I said hello, and asked if she was inside. One of the guys said she was changing and would be out in a minute. I waited a few minutes and knocked. She told me to come in. I wasn't at all prepared for what happened next. I opened the door and stepped inside, to see her half dressed with the whole back side of her dress open. I apologized and backed up, trying to get out of there and save both of us some embarrassment (but mostly me). She laughed and told me it was ok. Then, she asked me to help zip up her dress. It was like a scene out of some ridiculous romantic comedy. Awkward PA zipping up beautiful actress' dress. And I'm pretty sure I heard music playing when I did it.

She was totally cool with it, whereas I was pretty much losing my mind. I at least pretended to be professional, so we could move on with our day. It was a great day, but that one moment will stick with me for life.

The Shopping Cart

So, for one of my production jobs, I was given the task of getting a shopping cart for our shoot. To make a VERY long story a little shorter, there is a lot of red tape involved in getting a shopping cart if you want to own one.

After calling a bunch of places to see if we could buy a shopping cart off of them, I was almost ready to give up. We packed up the van to head off to our location, and the producer looks at me and says, "If you see a shopping cart on the side of the road, let me know".

After driving for a while, I see a dirty shopping cart chained to a pole that looked like it belonged to a homeless person. I laughed and said, "What about that one? Haha". The producer told me to stop, and we went over and looked at it. My next job? To get something that could cut the chains.

Before I could even walk to a Home Depot, a homeless man walks up to us and starts shouting and protecting "his" shopping cart, which he mysteriously did not have a key for. We offered him $60 for his shopping cart, which he gladly took. We cut the chain, and put it in the van to bring back to our location.

As a humble PA, I was given the job of cleaning it and making it camera ready. I went out and bought some bleach and gloves. Unfortunately for myself, I had dressed a little nicer that day.

After finding a hose in the streets of NY, I start cleaning out the cart. I pull out newspapers from the late 90's, and as I pull out the last paper, I see a milk carton with a hole in it. Then it hit me that this was the man's toilet.

After about 30 minutes of bleaching, scrubbing and gagging, I brought it upstairs to the producers.

They didn't even use it.

The end.