Fox Free Preview With Even More Free

Do I look suspicious?

I won free passes from Fresh 102.7 to go to the FOX Fall Preview at AMC in NYC.  I'd already had plans with my officemate to go to dinner, so we had salads in Bryant Park first.  I'd arrived at the park a bit early, so I sat by the carousel because I liked the music. I felt like I was kind of in Paris, and I'm in the middle of reading The Paris Wife, which is amazing, so it was as if I was in the book.

I was keeping to myself, reading my book, sipping my free Dunkin Donuts iced coffee (this DD gift card I have is lasting forever!), and listening to the carousel music.  Usually I'm one to avoid where kids go to scream, but no children were screaming.  It was a perfect evening to wait in the park.

And then came along imperfection.  Some guy came over and pointed to the empty chair on the other side of my table, asking, Can I sit here? I do not feel like talking to people, I want to be anti social, and you seem to be quiet and reading, and I don't want to deal with anyone right now.

Then he did a shaking shuddery motion as if to shake off the thought of talking.  I glanced up and said a quick, Sure no problem, and went back to my book.

A quick search on Bing will offer the definition of anti-social through the Oxford English Dictionary as "not sociable" and "not wanting the company of others."  This is what I understood this dude to mean when he said he didn't want to talk to anyone.

Apparently, he either forgot he wanted to be anti-social or he doesn't know how to look up words in a dictionary because after a few moments of silence, he piped up, Are you in the FDNY? You look suspicious like you could be.

Now I've been accused of being lots of things--usually by irate students--but a police officer is not one of them.  So I responded, Me? No, I am not.  I sipped my coffee, barely looking up.

Mr. I Don't Know What Anti-Social Means then replied that he'd been in a park and met a woman who looked like a tourist who was actually an undercover cop.  He said he never would have thought it because her cover was so good.  Then he indicated my sunglasses and large book and repeated that I looked like I was undercover NYPD.

Apparently, Mr. I Don't Know What Anti-Social Means frequents parks and asks strangers if they are undercover.

For the record, I wear sunglasses because the sun is bright.  I wear big sunglasses because I can't get over the fashion trend of wearing sunglasses the size of my head.  The bigger the better, really.  And I read books because I like books.  I didn't explain this to him, though.  I simply responded, Nope, I'm just reading my book, waiting for my friend.

The conversation ended there with him nodding and agreeing to accept the fact that I was not undercover NYPD (though I could have been a Russian spy or something! Maybe he asked the wrong question! But I'm not a Russian spy.  I have been asked if I'm Russian before, however.  See how it all comes around?)
A few minutes later, he once again spoke up, but this time it was more of his being a detective, saying, Here's your friend now!  Maybe he was relieved that I actually was waiting for a friend and not simply blowing him off.  SD appeared from behind me smiling, and I greeted her saying, He thought I was in the NYPD.  She laughed and we walked away, not really knowing where we were going except for away from him.

After walking a loop to check out the food stands, one of which had a delightful selection of waffles, we settled on salads from Pax and eating al fresco.  And then it was time for the previews.

Only no one knew where we should check in.  Neither of the tables set up in the theater's lobby was for FOX.  I asked someone at the box office, and they told me to go up to Customer Service.  I asked Customer Service and they told me to go up to the theatre where the preview would be.  Then after waiting around a few minutes, someone told us to go outside because there was a line.

 When we went outside, we saw a line that was totally not there before.  We waited on this line for about 45 minutes and I didn't have a ticket like everyone else.  When we got to the front of the line where the guy told us to have our tickets out, I explained I had no ticket.  He said, Did you win passes?  I said yes, and he said to go into the lobby.

There in the lobby, where I'd first gone, was a table set up with FOX stuff, and the woman who had told us to go outside on the line was at the table, checking IDs.  So really, we were back where we started.

Really, it didn't matter because we got in before they had to turn people away (they always give away more tickets than seats to ensure that the theatre fills).  They also gave us each a free small popcorn and a free small soda.  SD was like, I'm glad we didn't have waffles for dinner, and I concurred because once we got into the theatre, they also gave us ice cream. So let's recap so far: FREE tickets, FREE popcorn, FREE soda, and FREE ice cream.

Then when we found our seats, we saw that we had swag waiting for us.  A tote bag for Scream Queens, a t-shirt for The Grinder that has Rob Lowe's head on it, and a hat for Grandfathered.  All that for FREE.

The staff encouraged us to take selfies and spread them on social media with the hashtags for the shows.  Then they told us about each show and I think we run in different circles from some of the girls who were there because the staff was announcing the names of some of the actors and girls were cheering and shouting and we were like, Who are they talking about??  BUT we knew Fred Savage and John Stamos and Rob Lowe.  We also knew Emma Roberts and Ariana Grande, so that bridged the gap.

We really liked Grandfathered, we kind of liked The Grinder, and we had no idea what to think about Scream Queens.  That show is supposed to be funny thriller killery, but mainly, it was over-the-top mean and offensive.  Like, the girl kills someone in a fryer in a kitchen, and that's not the mean, offensive part.  The mean-offensive part is how she talks to everyone around her and then there's a character who's deaf and sings Taylor Swift songs and the joke is that she's deaf and then SPOILER ALERT she gets killed.  The only part that was remotely funny was when Ariana Grande's character was fighting with someone who was trying to kill her, and instead of screaming at each other, they were texting each other. 

Every time a show I watch ends, I do my best to not replace it so that I have more time to read and write.  This whole FREE passes thing might make me check out some FOX shows this season, which is totally the point, but even so, free is free is free.