I found out that Wanda Sykes was coming to Playhouse Square, of course I marked the calendar and prepared for my next adventure.

I found out a few days before that Shari was unable to attend our Wanda outing and my husband wasn’t going to let me hang out in Cleveland’s dark alley’s alone. So I asked my mom who agreed to chill with me, here is our story.

I worked 8 hours, donated some plasma..not because I like saving lives but that I get paid to do so and then headed west to pick mom up. We arrived at The Playhouse Square a little after 4:00 and camped out on the edge of the street to the theater entrance. We had red bulls and combos to keep us company while we waited, not to mention the kittens that were running around held our attention for a bit.

We kept our eyes on every car that passed by, making sure to look in all the windows just in case…no sign of Wanda yet.

It was getting late and the security started to arrive so mom and I got a little closer and sat down across from the entrance before they came back out…and they did. Which was a good sign something was about to happen, so we just minded our own business hoping not to be spotted.

My one good friend Captain Hook came out and said we needed to go back to where we were before.. that we were to close. So mom and I slowly and sadly started to get up, he must have felt bad because he said we could stay as long as we were good and since it was just the 2 of us.

By now it was after 7 and Captain Hook was with another man waiting, this man was constantly on his phone…another sign that things were going down. A few minutes later another guy showed up, tall and appeared to be wearing expensive clothes. I could hear them talking. He asked Mr.Hook what we were doing there, Hook explained the situation to him but told him it was his building and he could do what he wanted. The man turned to us and said we could stay there but we were NOT to talk to Wanda, approach her, or make any kinda of contact, that she was running late and we were to let her be.

I’m sorry, I didn’t come all this way to sit on the cement for hours and just let Wanda Sykes walk by. So we waited and in the meantime I prepared all the necessary equipment I needed, I figured she was already late..a few more seconds wouldn’t matter.

It was after 8 when she finally rolled up, at this time mom and I were in a standing ready position. She got out on the furthest side.. of course and I could hear her bitching, jokingly how it was a pain to get to Cleveland or something about the airport..whatever it was I am sure it was funny. At this moment I yelled her name and asked if we could just get a wave, mom had said hi and wished her a good show, she waved and thanked us. I had bought a bottle of wine earlier in the day I was going to give her as a thank you, I told her I had it for her but she declined it. She waved again and told us to have fun and then disappeared down the tunnel into the theater. Mom asked if I wanted to wait another 3 hours until she came out but I declined, it was late and I was defeated. I had video of that and felt it was better then nothing, so we turned and started to pack up.

The video I have did not load with the sound, so I need to figure out what’s wrong with it. I will post as soon as I can.

Just then Hook came out and asked if we had anywhere to hide our stuff, I informed him we were leaving. He then proceeded to tell us that Wanda’s people were giving us FREE tickets to her show, we didn’t believe him at first but he assured us that he would not lie about something like that. He informed us to wait and that her manager would be out with the tickets very shortly. By now mom and I were in shock, stuff like this never happens so we were super giddy.

A few short minutes later her manager came out and asked if our car was nearby so we could put our bags in and that he would wait for us. Just like that we had ran across a busy street like 2 crazy women, dropping our belongings behind us and not looking both ways. We made it back to the gentleman who introduced himself as Kevin McDaniel, her security director. He told us that Wanda wanted to know if we had tickets and that she wanted to help out her fans, that these tickets PERSONALLY came from her. We thanked him a thousand times and then both bear hugged him before we sprinted off to the show.

At this time I should add that I had tweeted Wanda a few times during the day, the first time was informing her that mom and I were lurking in the shadows. We wanted to hit her up before the show because I had an early morning, working 2 jobs the next day really takes a lot out of you. The 2nd time I tweeted her was to let her know that security was being mean to us and wouldn’t let us talk to her but that I was going to ignore them and say hi anyways…

…So as mom and I are making our way into the building I notice a Twitter notification from Wanda, it reads.  “I’m sending you tickets. Bring your ass inside.”

This night was turning out so much better than I had planned and the show was amazing. She started off with some political jokes, went into a poop story that had tears rolling down my face, her impression of her wife was hilarious. She is loud, says the F word every other breath, she is very visual and had the crowd going from start to end.

I took a few pictures with no flash, everyone was using flash photography and it made me nervous. I didn’t want to interrupt her, I’m sensitive sometimes.

 

This is just video of her saying goodbye, I didn’t get any of the show.

 

The show was over and Wanda had disappeared offstage I knew we only had a short window to get back outside in hopes to meet her in person. We got to the isle and noticed exit signs along the walls, the signs read exit only watch your step so we were going to attempt to go out one of those doors, knowing where we wanted to be was just on the other side. Funny thing Hook was there yelling at us to go out the other way as mom is pushing and tugging on the door trying to get it to open.

Ok, so fine. Now we have to follow this slow ass crowd up the isle ways, we got stuck behind a smelly fat lady..it was horrible. Finally we got out to the lobby area where for a split second we were going to stop and use the restroom but decided against it. We flew through the crowd and made it to the parking garage where we originally came up, we got to the stairs and came to a dead halt. There was a 99 year old lady taking one step at a time, I finally had to push her out of the way. By now I can see the getaway car, it was on and ready to go and I was in a panic. FINALLY, I am using the word finally here a lot.. anyways. We made it out, there were like 3 other people and some bratty kids waiting outback to meet her. Seconds later she came out, Kevin gestured for us to come near. Mom and I waited back for everyone else to have their moments first and then we moved in when it was our turn. I thanked her and gave her an awkward hug, I tried to joke around but she was pretty serious. (If you saw her show you would have known that she can talk on stage to people for hours but one on one she gets weird and it was true.) She did start a conversation with me though, asking about my early morning. (She actually read my tweets) She took pictures with the both of us and signed our ticket stubs, we thanked her again before she left.

Below is the video I took of her signing but had to stop filming because I had to use my phone as my camera.

 

Before Instagram

After Instagram

 

She drove past us and I could see her waving, what a class act. I mean all around, from giving us tickets, to talking to us, to answering my tweets, to taking pictures and signing autographs.. I don’t think I could have asked for anything more.

Later that night my source told me she hit up the casino, haha.

 

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STALK ya later.