I was at a theater party this weekend, just a bunch of kids getting hammered and listening to Death Cab. Cast parties are strange, especially for those of us not in the cast. This particular group had just put on a production of The Scarlet Pimpernel, a weird, cheesy little musical set during the French Revolution. I didn't actually see the production. I was only there for the party.
So, after a while, after the IQs had started to dim and the normal people had gone home, some guy mentioned he had a guillotine and that we should use it.
Excuse me? Yes. A guillotine.
It turns out the set pieces were protected as part of the designer's contract and could never be used again. One such piece was a lifelike guillotine with a retractable blade, which came down on the victim's neck very realistically, only to have the blade go back up into the apparatus.
Someone decided we should play.
The guillotine was brought out and set up on the sidewalk. Woe to passers-by! After the first two people went through the pseudo-killing machine, someone (same guy, we'll call him 'Skip') decided we should go through it; head facing up, so as to look at the descending blade as it hurtled, gravity-drawn and speeding, towards your very throat.
Everyone was a more than a little freaked out at this new innovation and I have to tell you, most stepped back. Even knowing it was a game and that all was illusion, the very idea of watching even a fake death occur to you on a city sidewalk via the guillotine was not very appealing.
A few of us did it. It was no big deal. Scary. You bet your ass it was scary. Let me tell you this though, I did it because I was drunk and it seemed fun. Hell, it was fun. Nothing more.
People do all sorts of stupid shit in public when they're drunk. However, happyrobot readers, if I ever feel the need to pointlessly demonstrate my courage in front of strangers, just because they ask...please, someone (Skip?) pull out the real guillotine and a nice soft basket. Keep the head as a trophy.
Anyway, I went home after. The next day, I got a call from one of the guys whose house the party was at. The host, tired and spent after his fake near-death experience, had crashed a little earlier than he expected to have crashed. The guillotine, in the meantime, had gone missing.
Somewhere, right now, in some Arlington house, backyard or basement is a fake guillotine...just waiting to be modified. There's all sorts in this world.
