True Life: I'm a Seatfiller

Oh, how naive we were! We were two bumpkins bouncing on the back of a turnip truck when we were excited to find the craigslist post asking for Seatfillers for the MTV Movie Awards. "Ooh," Non-Sexual-Life-Partner (NSLP from here on) said, "Maybe I'll have to sit in Justin Timberlake's seat while he accepts an award and when I get up to give him his seat back his hand will graze my boob a little."

We arrived at Universal Studio's King Kong for a noon check in. We were IDed, tagged and agreed to stay for the entire filming of the show, until 8pm. Then lined up with the other Seatfillers. There are two classifications of Seatfillers: Boobs and Unfuckables. I'm sure you can conjure an image of each. Now bake that image at 110 degrees for four hours. As soon as the shadows stretched to make the wait comfortable, they moved us to another holding zone. Like feeder mice hoping our next spot would be more spacious, we pushed and shoved hoping to get picked.

Once inside the theater, we were placed under the jurisdiction of an MTV Lackey fittingly named "Douchebag." Douchebag told us to jam ourselves into the back of staircase until we could "smell the guy next to you's armpit." After four hours in the sun, we could smell each other’s armpits while maintaining a modest personal bubble. Then Douchebag began selecting people to go down and sit in seats that will be visible on camera. Groups of Boobs were extracted while the rest of us tried to convince ourselves it was an honor just to find the craigslist post. Even if we could only watch B-list celebrities walk past, thousands of people would love to be in our position. Thousands of people are idiots.

NSLP and I are not very competitive people unless there is some sort of trivia game involved, so we waited for the crowds to dwindle down to Unfuckables before making our play for Douchebag to select us. But then the Boobs came back, told to get comfortable until their turn was up again, and then immediately sent back to fill Paris Hilton's seat.

If we could just see the show from the holding area, we would have been content. But our view was blocked by Douchebag scanning a field of Unfuckables for any stray Boobs. NSLP turned to me and said "It couldn't be worse then this, let's just try." So we conjured our inner-Boobs, and hopped in line before Douchebag noticed.

Twenty of us were led down the middle aisle, and then told to squat behind a row. After ten minutes of squatting and thanking God that I wore opaque leggings under my short dress, we were told to get back to the seat filler section. "I was wrong before," NSLP whispered.

We strutted back to the holding section, past the Unfuckables to the exit in the back, where a guard was stationed to keep Seatfillers from sneaking to good seats. "But I have to use the bathroom." He allowed us to pass.

We gnawed through our Seatfiller bracelets in the bathroom stalls. Like rats sacrificing a leg to flee a trap, I would have gladly chewed through NSLP sunburned-arm to spare two more hours of comparing ourselves to Boobs.

With false-confidence and the little dignity we had left, we walked out the front door, across the red carpet, through craft-services, a loading zone and security check point. We crossed an invisible barrier between the glossy world of MTV and a theme park (a poor man’s Disney at best). In a seething crowd of fanny packed parents smearing sunscreen on screaming children we were finally Boobs.