The Tales of Tannie Tracy and Auntie Amy

The Alfie Boe Conspiracy*

Does anyone know what its like to have a dream? Oh, good, a few hands.* Right. We have too.

It all began on the morning of October 21^st 2011. On the way to the morning’s lectures, we were chatting about our recent discovery of Alfie Boe, Jean Valjean in the 25^th Anniversary Concert of Les Misérables. Both ardent fans, we were enthusiastically conversing about the financially unsupported dream we created and shared, of ditching all university obligations (who needs exams anyway?) and going to see Alfie Boe live, as his performance in Les Misérables was coming swiftly to a close (probably by the end of November).

Amy knew that he had once been a mechanic, and while discussing the fortunate absurdity of an opera-singing mechanic, Tracy imagined how funny it would be if after the show, during a meet and greet session, we were to ask him, after praising his voice and commissioning numerous autographs, to help us start our car.* “Hey sorry, can you please—” “Yeah sure, here’s my autograph.” “—no, I wanted to ask if you could please take a look at my car…”** And then of course, we laughingly suggested how it would be if we asked him to help the car on our home trip from the UK—all the way to Cape Town. “And Alfie, the radio’s broken, so you’ll have to sing.”***

When sobriety returned (it usually takes a little while*) we were once again reduced to wishful sighs, and suppositions of how we would ever raise enough money to pay our way over and see a show, Tracy suggested, “We should go busking! (*) Actually—” with a lot more gusto, she continued, “he should go busking for us!” *** Amidst gales of laughter, we both agreed that this would be the more profitable plan by far. Intrigued, Amy thought we should probably e-mail him. “Imagine how cool it would be if he did!”

We parted for various classes and all through the morning, the plan grew in Amy’s devious little cranium, until when she finally met up with Tracy again before our History tutorial, almost all the wording had been conceived. Tracy of course was game, but still wracked with hilarity that Amy was serious.* Come to that, she was too (serious, and wracked with hilarity*).

While eating Amy’s brain food (the ever present Friday bran muffin*), we searched the internet for an e-mail address most likely to yield pleasing results. This was fairly difficult, jammed in the car—to keep out the wind—eating muffins, laughing*, and using the treacherous search engine of the varsity wireless on Amy’s pet laptop, Petrie. We asked Alfie Boe to bring us over (and decided against breaking into song about Bring us home!**). We admitted the absurdity of our request, making reference to that fact that many more stranger things had happened in history, like Nick Jonas being cast as Marius ** (but decided to leave that out too). Most of the conversations revolved around “how awesome would it be if…” and that phrase seemed to characterise most of our conversation that day.

“How funny would it be,” Tracy suggested in the middle of this, “if he actually did give it to us, and we didn’t get our passports in time?”** The following shrieks of laughter were cut short by the horrific revelation. “Tracy! I don’t have a passport! TRACY! What will we do?!” Come to that, Tracy didn’t have one either. In such times as this, time is only passed by hilarious horror and hysteria, which in turn brought on more hilarity*. We were trapped in a very vicious cycle, at the bottom of which is a sore tummy and sore cheeks. We decided, in case it might bias the recipient of our correspondence, not to include our passport dilemma in the e-mail either.*

Plans were made for ensure the application for new passports as early as next week. As this can take months, we were a little concerned that we wouldn’t arrive in time. But we had to remind ourselves, that it was really absurd that we should planning for our passports on the off-off-off-chance that he’d actually read our request (in time to grant it) and grant it. However, we were not to be hindered by trifles. (Or cakes***).

So, on our way to History, we conjectured that five days would be sufficient to travel there (two days, in case) stay one day (the concert night) and travel back, much to the surprise of our peers** (to whom we told precious little: we agreed to keep this saga, until it became the sort of happy story that sold newspapers worldwide, to ourselves, and possibly Alfie Boe. And possibly his agent, website manager, manager, fan-mail controller, facebook news feed reader, and anyone affiliated to him—maybe we should even look for his wife’s e-mail address?—and everyone we could get to, to get through, to his ear*. So that his voice may reach ours.* Live*).

Our History buddies warned us that we were mad to jet-lag ourselves over exams, but we were responded: “meh—if we’re even here for our exams!” Amy had a new thought: “Hey! We could sleep in the airport! (**) He wouldn’t even have to pay for our hotel for the night, we could just catch an early flight out. A four day trip!”

Still using the varsity cap during the dreary history tut,[*see note about tuts at the end] Amy tried to find dates for the concert. To her horror, dismay and general dejection, it seemed that Les Misérables had already ended! We were too late! Too late, too late! As can be imagined—oh cruel fate!—this put a slight dampener on the plans. And Amy had to find a suitable alternative: but somehow, asking for tickets to the Bring Him Home tour, or failing that a request to Bring Alfie to Our Home (being South Africa), did not have the same sparkle (although it was sparkly* none the less. It had glitter).

On leaving the history department (having learnt very little) we reached the car… and the real fun began. We talked first about life and that junk, our future careers... but who needs it, we’d just be Alfie Boe’s secretaries or the rehearsal audience for his rehearsals.*

We found that Les Misérables was still on! “22^nd of October!” Tracy cried. “That’s like tomorrow!” Amy continued scrolling down*… “oh look, there’s more!” “Tracy! It’s still on!” Rapidly switching to the e-mail draft, we gladly erased the compromised requests and fulfilled our destiny (being to write the e-mail).

“Imagine,” Tracy suggested, “If we got a free t-shirt.” “Yes!” Amy hooted with laughter, “on top of paying for our airfare, our hotel and our tickets how cool would it be to have a t-shirt too!”** “I take a moment for myself, bow down, bow down. Take a Boe.”** ‘Maybe we should just drive there and deliver the mail: ‘Here you go, please send us money because we can’t get there otherwise. Thanks bye.’”**

For some reason, suspecting that good times (which are un-allowable in student life, and are usually crushed by the university’s bad admin*) were afoot, the wireless become unreliably unreliable*. Having finally found an e-mail address suitable, we were eager to send the e-mail, but the connections were not working. Searching frantically for other available connections, Amy discovered the curious presence of ‘Android.’ Could this be the connection that would save the day?

Android*. Android, Android, Android**. He did not comply. We could almost feel him breathing down our necks, behind the car—a giant white robot—who would say in  deep monotone: “DON’T STEAL MY GOOGLE.”*** Alas, he did not comply.

More misery ensued… Petrie. He—he—he was dying. With than 20% battery, our quest was becoming doomed. We had some e-mail addresses. We even had the e-mail. But alas—it was not to be! We… we had… almost failed.

But no! Destiny prevailed! Amy had an idea! A glorious, last resolution! We would ascend again the stairs to the history department, whose connection before had been so been so benevolent, in the hopes of finding a similar stable reward (a.k.a. a connection).

Taking off running****—for 20% is not to be trusted to last for the sending of an e-mail—we abandoned all but the laptop and the car keys (we did lock the car—except one door*—we were in a rush, all right?) and raced to the stairs.

We were laughing too hard to ascend them very quickly. “How funny would it be,” Amy laughed, “if we got the tickets and this story of us running up the stairs made the newspaper?”* We hooted with laughter for some time (consequently stopping our progress temporarily). And Amy corrected, “who needs the tickets, we’ll tell the paper anyway!”**

A single flight later (not to England**, just up the stairs) the e-mail went through. And the whoops of excitement and uncontrollable hilarity echoed up and down the staircase. “Go to ‘Sent Items’!” Tracy cried. “It’ll be there!”***

And so it was.

Finally recovering ourselves, we descended again. “We should write this in a blog!” Amy cried. “And call it the Tales of Tannie Tracy and Auntie Amy!”** “And it’ll be made into a movie, like Julie & Julia!” Tracy cried.*** “And Alfie Boe will watch it!” “We don’t need him to star in it,” Amy suggested. “No,” Tracy agreed, "he’s just the music.” ***

On the drive home, we planned to write up this blog. Tracy commented on Amy’s driving but Amy was swift to defend herself: “I not endangering us today. Not both of us at the same time anyhow! If one of us dies, someone has to be left to go and watch Alfie Boe.”***

Then we thought we might contact Ellen Degeneres, because maybe she’d sponsor us. It’s the sort of random thing she might do.* And she’s funny. She’d appreciate us*. We were going to contact Oprah, but she’s not around anymore. Nevertheless—just in case the Alfie Boe plan didn’t work out (“How funny would it be if we got over Alfie Boe before he sent the tickets?”**) it’d be good to have some untried resources still handy.

And after we typed all this up, Tracy commented, “I laugh he reads this.”*

“Some people don’t know what a tut is, put lesson.” She later suggested.

“Yes, because we need to keep the concerns of our fans at heart.” Amy replied (she tried to say it drily but was laughing too hard). **

“Our sensitivity is what they depend on. (***) We can’t forsake them now.”

“Everything is ‘How funny would it be’, or ‘How awesome would it be’, but it IS funny.” Tracy said.**

[* Whenever you see this sign, we laughed. We do that a lot, on some days.]