Because this one time I loved me a musical.

One day last summer I packed a picnic lunch of peanut butter and strawberry jelly sandwiches, the loudest compostable bag of chips ever created, and carrots. Erin and I were in downtown Portland running some errands when she learned that I'd never seen Rent. I knew two things about Rent at that time. 1. It included a catchy tune that broke down some amount of time into minutes. 2. It was about AIDS?

We detoured immediately from Tiffany & Co. and headed to the nearest Borders where Erin had already (on our walk) called ahead and reserved their only copy of the DVD of the final performance of Rent on Broadway. Thirteen dollars and ninety-eight cents later, we were on our way back to the car, Rent in hand. We fed the meter and sat right there on 3^rd Avenue, MacBook on the dash, trying to quietly consume Harvest Cheddar Sun Chips and super crisp carrots, while being mesmerized by this astounding production.

I have been known to break into song about any and everything. I'll sit outside your bathroom door and sing to you about the unknown origins of the corn in your poop. I'll make up entire songs about typos before autocorrect gets ahold of them (Panfa Exprrs). I'll spend twenty minutes wailing about this chick I think might be gay, all to the tune of The Cranberries "Zombie." After experiencing Rent, I'm still as prone to bust-a-tune, it's just now, every ditty ends with me singing, "... because this one time I saw Rennnnnnt."

I love musicals. Always have. I realize that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles LIVE! probably doesn't count, but that aside, I've had some fairly legitimate musical theater experiences. And no, not just as a virgin at a live Rocky Horror Picture Show. I will go to the grave saying singing 1776 is my favorite even though I can think of at least two (three if you count TMNT) productions that have done more to my core than loosely teach me about how the signing of the Declaration of Independence went down.

All of this could change if I saw Chicago on Broadway. Or Red Sox vs. Dodgers: The Musical. But, here goes (Sorry, 1776):

1. Wicked

2. Rent

Except Wicked isn't even in first place. It's in whatever place comes before that on the Top Blow Your Mind List Of All Time ... list. 

Wicked. It's been five days since I saw it and I still can't find words.

Unlike with Rent, you know, where I went into that musical with all kinds of knowledge, I purposefully kept myself ignorant. I knew Wicked put some sort of spin on the Wizard of Oz, but that was it. I'd heard "Defying Gravity" maybe three times, but didn't listen to the words (on purpose), and certainly didn't know which character sang it.

I bought tickets to see Wicked a couple of years ago when it came through Portland and then was unable to attend. I was bummed about the $180 down the drain, but I didn't know then what I was missing out on. I don't think I was supposed to see the show then. I was supposed to wait until nearly two months ago when Erin called and said she had a surprise for me and told me I needed to secure a day off and that she wouldn't budge; she was not giving any more details. By that evening she'd confessed, because she's a great surprise-keeper. But she told me I'd have to wait 51 days to experience the amazingtude that is Wicked. I'm telling you, every day for 51 days I mentioned what I was going to be doing on April 21.

We sat in the orchestra section on a row with five seats. The view was pretty damn decent.

Here's the thing about me: I kind of get sensory overload and my wires cross fairly easily. If I walk into a house and someone has been baking bread or cookies or roasting garlic, I almost immediately lose my hearing because the place smells so good. Music really loud? I go blind. A running joke with the Missus and me is the yelling of "WHAT?!?" any time a circumstance overwhelms our faculties. Even if it's not loud.

Our seats were two in, leaving two seats to my left and one to Erin's right. To my left were two chicks, one of whom was way super excited to be seeing Wicked for the whatevereth time, both of whom were too fat for their seats aaaaaaaand the types who cover cigarette smell with massive amounts of perfume. Yay. To Erin's right was another chick, but this one didn't seem like she was going to be any trouble. ...Until she took off her shoes just as the lights dropped. Assault. Of. The. Senses.

And then the show started.

At first all my brain could compute was the fact that all the characters were attending what was basically Hogwarts 2.0. It was the smells, y'all. Too many smells.

In elementary school, Erin and I had a friend named Natalie Hausia. She was awesome. Hilarious, smart, sassy, astute, and touched by Beaches in a way that no fourth grader should be. Natalie once said that it takes 167 seconds to get used to a scent. She probably made that up. Mostly because on Thursday night, during that 2 hour and 43 minute show, there was never a time that I did not notice the odors around me.

But by intermission, that time when the lights came up but my jaw couldn't because I'd just experienced the bad-assedness that is "Defying Gravity," by then I was a little less bothered by the "odoriferocity." For the previous hour and a half I'd been charmed by a musical filled with made-up words (my favorite), and spent some time wondering why I didn't listen to my theater professor in college when he begged me to change my major and come study full time in his department. He promised me there'd always be a tech job available and sitting there on Thursday night, I thought, "I could shine a spotlight on Elphaba for a living."

I was in awe of this production. And since I'd already started putting some of the pieces together, I expressed some concerns to Erin during intermission. Her response was colorful, if not poetic. "In the book ... Dorothy? You fucking hate that cunt." Well, put, Erin Angelou.

Seriously. It's a wonder I didn't spend the entire show just yelling "WHAT!?!" because between the smells and the music and trying to figure out exactly how much of Elphaba was painted green, I struggled to make sense of much else.

I'm kind of embarrassed that when Erin initially called to tell me she had a surprise for me I guessed that she was somehow taking me to see Oprah. Here's what would be awesome about that: if Opes had me on the show, and didn't buy me a house, or send me on an all expenses paid vacation to the moon, or declare it "Katie (redacted) Day," but instead gave me a lifetime supply of Wicked.