Travel Perks and 30 Rock

Traveling for business can be torture. Not only do I miss my kids, I get chronic sinus infections, some airlines don’t have toilet seat covers (what!?) and I always seem to get stuck next to people that insist on speaking to me throughout the entire flight. The one bright, shiny perk to flying is that Continental Airlines plays NBC re-runs and I get to see 30 Rock episodes! If you haven’t seen this show, you must. Alec Baldwin is amazing. Many have written him off as a mean dad for the personal answering machine messages that were leaked to the press. I’m not here to change your mind, but I have a personal experience that may give you pause to re-think 30 Rock.

I earned my undergraduate degree at Pepperdine University. For anyone that knows anything about the school you can imagine what the experience is like. Imagine going to a Church of Christ School where students are so wealthy, their parents buy their children housing in the Malibu Colony, where your neighbors are Cher, Cindy Crawford, Charlie Sheen and Mel Gibson and where your classes are held minutes away from some of the most beautiful coastal land in the world.

I paid my way through Pepperdine by waitressing in Malibu! Imagine the ultimate financial aid poster child delivering pizza to Sly Stallone's house, pouring coffee for Ed Harris and Sean Penn and picking up plates of food scraps from Mel Gibson and Linda Hamilton (when she originated the buff arms that Madonna later copied). One of my jobs had me waitressing at a restaurant called Anthony's. One night, Alec Baldwin came in with a business associate and ordered chicken parmigiana with no cheese. That wasn't a punchline. He explained that he wanted broiled eggplant, covered in sauce with no cheese, he was removing dairy from his diet.

I had definitely had stranger requests during my stint as a waitress so I brought the order back to the kitchen and a few minutes later I brought the baked eggplant with marinara to his table. A minute later, Alec called me back to the table and politely told me that the chef must have put ricotta in the marinara. When I brought the plate back in the kitchen, the chef wet berserk. He started pounding on the metal counter using every expletive he knew. Halfway through the tirade, I started praying that the music was loud enough to drown out the shouting when Alec came into the kitchen. He calmly told the chef that it wasn't my fault and that he needed to stop yelling at me.

Later that night, all of the staff had gone home and I was left to close the restaurant. It was a quiet night on the residential strip of PCH and I rushed to roll in the café tables from the patio. As I rolled in the last one, I saw car headlights creeping up behind me and I feared the worst; robbers coming to steal cash! I went to grab the broom thinking if I was gonna go down, I'd go down swinging. To my relief and surprise it was Alec Baldwin offering to help me put the rest of the patio furniture away and mildly castigating me for being alone in the restaurant so late. After I locked the front door, he told me to hurry off to my car (parked across the busy highway) and watched as I got in, fastened my seatbelt and made the Uturn to head home. He waved goodbye and that was the last time I saw him in the city of Bu.

When I've told this story to people in the past, I've actually been told it's disappointing that there's no seedy ending. I tell those people to get their minds out of the gutter because people still can and will surprise you with kindness in unexpected ways and want nothing in return. That was more than fifteen years ago and it’s something I will never forget.

So, stop judging and watch 30 Rock! The show is amazing