Close encounters

I've always believed that I amble through life anonymously —just another schmo with one tube drilled into his neck and another dangling from his belly.

An incident last night suggests that I may not be as anonymous as I think.

I was sitting in the third row at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills, waiting for the 30th anniversary screening of Bette Midler's "The Rose" to begin, when I decided that maybe I should make a quick trip to the bathroom to slam 30 ml of Extra Strength Liquid Tylenol down my G-tube.

While weaving my way through the crowd up the aisle, I heard someone shout, "I read your blog!" After assuming that someone had spotted Nikki Finke or Ariana Huffington in the mass of people, I was startled to realize that the person who shouted was talking to me.

He went on to explain that he learned about this blog from Dana Miller's Out and About column in Frontiers IN LA several weeks ago. Naturally, I was speechless —and embarrassed because I didn't have a pen on me so I could chat with this reader. I couldn't even ask him his name.

So I just shook this reader's hand, tried to contort my lips into a smile, and then made my way to the john to do the deed with my G-tube and Tylenol.

Reader, if you are out there, I hope you don't think I was being snooty. I really did want to chat with you. Heck, I could have used your assistance in the bathroom. It was quite a challenge to juggle a G-tube, syringe, container of Tylenol and a bottle of water in a bathroom stall with only two hands and surrounded by bacteria-contaminated surfaces.

After the film, it was my turn to approach someone. In the lobby of the theater, I spotted the actor who performed the voice of Oogie Boogie in Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas.

This time, I was prepared to strike up a conversation. I whipped out my note pad and gushed "Loved you in The Nightmare Before Christmas!" on a clean page, and walked up to the actor and held up the note for him to see.

He was gracious and reminded me that Halloween was coming so Nightmare would be making its annual run at the El Capitan Theater. He even sounded like Oogie Boogie.

What I shoulda done was ask him what he charges for a day's work. It would be pretty cool to hire Oogie Boogie to be my voice.

Now that's what I call service

I had planned to meet a friend in Los Feliz on Tuesday night so we could walk together up the hill to the Greek Theatre for the Elvis Costello show.

The Greek is just a short hike from the the intersection of Vermont Avenue and Los Feliz Boulevard, but my buddy told me to make sure I was well hydrated. After parking my car on a side street off Vermont, I sent a text message to him to let him know I was going to sit in my car long enough to slam a bottle of water and a liquid Extra-Strength Tylenol chaser into my belly before meeting him on the corner.

I poured the Tylenol into the measuring cup and placed it on the dashboard, and unscrewed the bottled water. Then I opened a few buttons of my shirt and pulled out the G-tube, drawing some curiosity from a woman walking her dog on the sidewalk.

The dog yipped a few times and the woman looked at me funny. I can't imagine what she thought but a man feeding himself with a G-tube may not be the element that she wanted to see in her neighborhood. But hey, I wasn't the one pooping on the sidewalk.

The woman hurriedly moved on —possibly to ring Chief William Bratton's doorbell— and I starting digging around in my backpack for my syringe so I could get the fluids down the tube and meet my buddy.

In my backpack, I found loose change, a few unpaid bills and a packet of mayonnaise from 2008, but no syringe. I left it behind on my desk at the office.

Driving back to the office or going home to get another syringe wasn't a practical option —both destinations were at least 10 miles away and I didn't want to miss Elvis' opening act. Then I remembered that there was a service station with a small market at the corner of Vermont and Los Feliz.

Surely the service station would sell me a plastic funnel that I could use to pour my fluids into my belly, I thought.

I scampered up the hill toward the service station. After spotting my friend sitting in the grass waiting for me across Los Feliz, I shot a text to him to let him know that I needed a few more minutes.

I walked into the service station market and scoped the shelves for a funnel. There was a rack of motor oil, but no funnels to use for pouring it.

I opened my note pad and drew a sketch of a funnel. Below the drawing, I wrote "You sell these things here?" and handed the note pad to the attendant behind the counter.

He stared at my drawing, took a glance at me, then looked again at the sketch. Then a broad smile came to the attendant's face.

He took an empty Marlboro carton and tore it in half. Then he shaped the cardboard into a cone, and punched a few staples into it to hold it together.

I could tell just by looking at it that the tip of the cone wouldn't fit into my G-tube. Even if it had, the home health nurse who told me to use my G-tube only in sterile environments would be appalled if she knew I would even consider contaminating my tube with cardboard that was laying around on a service-station counter. But I was certainly impressed by the attendant's ingenuity, and I hope you are, too.

I accepted the makeshift syringe, gave the attendant a buoyant thumbs up and walked out the door.

If he had known that I needed it to shoot fluids into my belly, I bet he would have called on Chief Bratton, too.