is this your floss?

On Saturday we went to see Floss. One of the partners is currently in the cast. The show itself has been running for several years, but changes out casts (and rewrites the characters) every few months.

Getting there was half the fun. There was a group of six of us that attended. We looked up the location of the theatre and decided that while you could take the Brown Line, parking probably wouldn't be too bad around that part of town (North Center). Still we gave ourselves extra time and carpooled with another partner.

We arrived over a half an hour early and found parking very easily. We found the theatre and bought our tickets and then I called to check on the others. The woman who organized things was on the train. Her husband decided not to join us at the last minute. I wish she had called me because I would have taken her too (I can fit two other people in the back seat, but three adults is pushing it). In the end her train was stopped as someone pushed the emergency button and wouldn't fess up. She ended up running six blocks from the station and arriving a few minutes late.

The other couple, first years from the bay area, took the Metra to the El from Hyde Park. They met up with us a few minutes before the show started, at the coffee shop across the street called The Red Eye, where I was somehow managing to spill more of my cherry Italian soda on my shirt than I was actually drinking. Fortunately it dried during the play.

Floss is not about some overzealous dentists. It is actually rather difficult to describe Floss. Some will tell you it is a dance parody, and while that is true, it is something more. Floss is the story of the Beboian tribe who in an effort to raise funds for their sinking island, share their plight through various dances.

In the context of this performance, floss is essentially one's purpose in life. It is what we all seek. In this play, for some floss is building a canoe (sans oars) to take your people to safety. Whenever someone discovers his or her floss, the group surrounds that person and chants in unison:
Is this your floss?
Is this your floss?
Is this your floss?
This IS your floss.

Wouldn't it be great if when we stumbled across our life's purpose a group of people surrounded us and cheered us on? Oh, if only life were that simple.

I have to admit though that part of me couldn't help think that somehow this would be a great skit for LEAD. I mean in some way a big part of business school, especially in the early weeks of recruiting when the sheep mentality takes over and people attend every session despite never having had an interest in banking or consulting or ... Of course for LEAD purposes, the group would end up chanting, this is NOT your floss and chase them from the Goldman presentation.

In any event, it was a fun evening and a great performance. We met up with "Prushka Prennenpoppy" after the show at a tavern on the other corner. We were there for about half an hour, when all of a sudden this huge group of people, all carrying these oversized beer mugs, flooded the place. It really was surreal. My first thought was that they were collecting money for the victims of Katrina, because otherwise it really didn't makes sense where these people suddenly appeared from.

The noise and the crowding and the smoke were getting to be too much so we left around 11pm. We dropped the Hyde Park couple home, and the other two partners took the El back together. The Metra just doesn't run often enough on Saturday night. I somehow missed the turn to Lakeshore Drive, and ended up taking Lincoln Avenue back most of the way. It worked out, and we were all home shortly after midnight.

currently reading :: CROSSING CALIFORNIA