(Note: if you came looking for pictures, but don't feel like reading, just scroll down and you'll see them)

I've never actually gone out in public setup in a multiple cast configuration. There've been times that I've put myself in various multi-cast combo's. Long arm cast with long leg cast, dual long arm casts, dual short leg casts (sometimes connected together by a broomstick) and dual short arm casts have all be done, some more than once, but I've never been seen in public in any such gettup.

On Wednesday, August 30th, it dawned on me that everything was in place to do a multi-cast public adventure. I had no professional obligations that day (I'm a consultant by trade) and my wife and kids were out of the house. Now, mind you, I had committed to doing some casting before the multi-cast idea hit me. I was trying to decide whether to do a yellow short-arm thumb spica on my right or left arm. I almost always do my "just for the day" casts on my left arm, sometimes it's a long arm cast, sometime a short arm cast, but mainly on my left arm. Actually, my right arm has only seen a cast about a half a dozen times over the years. Being a righty, I just naturally tend toward taking my left arm out of action instead of my dominant arm, the right.

This day though, since I wouldn't be working or typing or writing, I was thinking about doing a short-arm thumb spica on mister right arm for a change. I had just done a black long arm cast on my right arm the previous monday and really enjoyed the experience...I was looking for a repeat of that adventure.

I started pulling out my casting supplies when it occurred to me that I had an opportunity to cast both arms for a change and to go out and have some fun. I played out the scenario in my head and decided it was quite doable. The decision made, I went to work.

I used a single roll of bright green 4" fiberglass on top of white synthetic stockinette and cast padding. I casted my right arm first, using the dry method, waited for the cast to set and proceeded on to the left arm. Both casts, I'm happy to say, came out perfect.

As soon as the left arm cast had set, I jumped in my car and headed for the city. (Actually, I spent a few minutes announcing my plans on the OAG message board, which was no easy trick because it's not easy to type, and then I got in my car)

While on route to New York City, this tiny little idea started formulating in my head. When casted, I often think about the story I've been writing for such a long time...THE BET...and plan on story lines and ideas. Anybody who has read The Bet knows that the premise of the story is that Abby gets a multi-cast configuration for losing a bet. While driving to Manhattan, I got this crazy idea to "do research for the story." That is...I would tell anybody who asks what happened to me that "I lost a bet."
  
Little by little, the idea came to me. I played with it, worked with it, changed it around many different ways and finally settled on what I would do. This is what I came up with.

I would say the following to anybody who approached me or otherwise got my attention:
"I lost a bet! I have to wear these until I get fifty people to sign each cast or two weeks, whichever comes first."

That was my plan, simple as that, and that's exactly what I ended up doing.

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After parking the car, I began walking toward Times Square. I figured I would get plenty of attention in the heart of New York City. Times Square has plenty of tourists and non-tourists alike. With a bright green cast on each arm, I actually imagined people running up to me to ask me what happened. I was sorely disappointed. If anybody out there lives under the misconception that New Yorkers are impolite, well, that just isn't true. NOBODY WAS ASKING ME ANYTHING!!!

I must have walked 3 or 4 long New York blocks before anybody even gave me a second glance. That's almost a half mile walk, at 12:15pm (lunchtime), with people everywhere. I bet if I was a beautiful blond woman with those casts on people would look.

Anyway, I finally got what I was looking for. A black gentleman was sitting on a standpipe doing nothing. He watched me approach and when I was in earshot he smiled and asked with his hands spread out wide, "What happened?" as if we were best buddies.

I must have rolled my eyes when he asked it because he then said, "I know you're probably tired of being asked, but I just gotta know how you hurt both at the same time."

Then I smiled and said, "Actually, I want people to ask me. I was beginning to think I was invisible." I paused for effect, then said, "What happened is...I lost a bet."

He inquired back to me, "You lost a bet?"

"Yes. And now I'm stuck in these casts for my entire vacation...two weeks...unless I can get 100 people to autograph the casts."

He cocked his head to one side and asked, "You're kidding?"

"No, it's true. And you're the first person to volunteer."

"That's interesting," he said, "sure, I'll help you out."

He began routing through his pockets for a pen (which wasn't necessary, because I had three with me) and I said, "Oh, could you take a couple of pictures first. I need to get clean shots of these before they start getting filled with signatures."

That's when he snapped the first two pictures.

When he began signing the cast, I had another inspiration. I said, "Oh, and also write a single word describing what you think of this nonsense I've gotten myself into."

He giggled and proceded to write his name on my right arm. Then word he wrote..."cool"

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I continued my walk to Times Square. My plan was to stand in line at the TKTS booth. They sell half price tickets to Wednesday matinee Broadway shows. I figured I'd stand in that line, enjoying my casts, answering all sorts of questions, and round out the afternoon by taking in a Broadway show. It was a perfect plan.
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Not long after leaving my first signer, I was walking past a group of construction workers on their lunch break. One of them watched me walking toward him and seeing that I was making solid eye contact with him, he pointed his chin in my direction and asked what happened.

"I lost a bet,"

He narrowed his eyes, then laughted and said, "Las Vegas huh? And they broke your arms. Wow!"

I'd never considered that people might jump to that conclusion. "No, I made a bet with my wife and lost. Now I have to wear these casts for two weeks, my entire vacation, unless I can get fifty different people to sign each cast."

He and his four coworkers all did double takes. The spokesman for the group asked, "are you kidding?"

"Nope," I answered. "But I'm not allowed to approach anybody. I have to wait until somebody notices me and talks to me first. Which you did...will you help me out?"

"Not today buddy, sorry."

I couldn't believe it. I didn't think anybody would refuse to sign once they heard my story, but it happened on the second person I asked.

"You won't help me get out of these casts?" I paused, then looked at the rest of the crew, "will any of you guys help me?"

They all nodded their heads back and forth. I turned to continue my walk and the first guy said, "good luck." Yeah, thanks.
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At the corner of 42nd Street and Broadway, somebody stopped me to ask about my casts. As I told them the same story, another couple was listening in. Would you believe it...everybody refused to sign my casts. I guess this is more what you'd expect in New York. People probably think they're signing their soul over to the devil or something. Finally, a woman volunteered to let her daughter, Haley, sign one of the casts.

That was all I got from that encounter. At least seven people listened to my story and refused to sign. Including Haley's parents. Why would they let Haley sign and not sign themselves? Go figure.
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I finally got to the TKTS booth and found the end of the line. It was a very long line, but that was okay with me, I wanted as much time on line as possible.

Things didn't get off to a great start. I stood on line for at least fifteen minutes before anybody actually said anything. There was plenty of eye contact though. I would make eye contact with every person that looked at my casts, hoping they would say something. Some people smiled sympathetically, some looked away guiltily, some just looked. But nobody was saying anything.

Finally, things started happening. I won't go into complete detail about each encounter, but rather, I'll summarize the different opening lines and reactions I got from people.

One lady made pushing motions with her hands and said, "roller blading?"
A man asked, "did you fall?"
Somebody else asked, "both at the same time?"
or "What a bummer" or "How'd that happen"

My response to whatever they asked me as an opening line was always the same. "I lost a bet, now I have to wear these things for two weeks unless I can get fifty signatures on each cast from one hundred different people, all strangers, only if they start a conversation with me first."

All the people that asked me about my casts on the TKTS line were willing to sign. In most cases, I added "and please write what you think of this nonsense in a single word."

Some of the words offered were, "Brutal" "Cool" "Cute" "Funny" "Silly" "Dumb" "Fricken' Great" and "Wow"

One lady, a classic example of a Jewish American Princess, you know, like The Nanny on TV, she kept saying, "you're a whack job, you're a whach job" as she was signing my cast. But she didn't write that.

After an hour and ten minutes on that line, I was just about to the ticket booth when one of the guys that hangs around there handing out leaflets and flyers caught sight of me. He got really excited when I told him what was going on. He began asking all kinds of questions that I wasn't ready to answer. The one that really caught me up short was, "what would you have gotten if you'd won the bet?"

I took a moment to pull my thoughts together and said something lame like, "uh, I wouldn't have had to do any housework for a month." He accepted that.

Then he started asking questions that were easier..."who put the casts on?" "how long did it take to make them?" "How will you get them off?" Perhaps this was a future caster in the making. Anyway, I told him that my wife is an ER nurse and he took that to mean she put the casts on. :) I also told him they each took about 5 minutes and he was surprised it was such a fast process.

After that, he confirmed with me the terms of the bet and said, "hey, I can help you out with this, I'll get my whole gang to sign off for you."

His "whole gang" turned out to be two other guys beside himself.

Some other people at the ticket booth overheard our conversation and volunteered to sign also.

It was at this point that I started making slash marks on the palm of the cast to keep track of the signatures. You can see them in the pictures further down the page.

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Well, I purchased a ticket to a show called "Copenhagen." It was rather disappointing. The show was just so, so and very few people even noticed the casts and fewer said anything. I got zero signatures there.
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Outside the theater, a delivery man came running up to me and started a conversation. He signed the cast with the name of some porno star. Some of you will probably recognize the name. I'm proud to say that I'm clueless.
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Since my day was coming to an end, I decided to change my tactics a little bit. I started hanging out on a street corner asking people to take pictures of me.

This picture was taken by a girl who had nose rings and body piercings. I felt more comfortable telling her and her companion about my little predicament because they could appreciate bizarre fashion statements better than most people. I asked her to take the picture with the NYC transit sign visible over my shoulder to prove I was in NY. They both signed the cast. The guy with her was the one that signed the NYPD.

You can see in the photo that the signatures were starting to pile up now. I think I had more than 20 by this time.
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This next picture was taken by another guy walking past me. He was, unfortunately, a foreigner and didn't ask about the casts. This was taken right outside the parking garage where I would be picking up my car in the next few minutes. While I didn't get any pictures out of any of the people at the parking lot, I did pick up another 5 or 6 signatures and got to tell my story again. The parking lot fun began when one guy waiting on line to pay for his car spotted me and said, "both at once huh?" To which I replied my now time tested "No, I lost a bet!"

Then all the people drew in closer as I gave the details. A lot of people asked "how long have you been married?" I'd always answer truthfully "eleven years" but nobody ever indicated why that was a curiosity. Were they thinking that this was something only newlyweds would do or something to that effect? I never did find out.

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After picking up my car, I headed for the lincoln tunnel. That's when I snapped these close ups of each cast while I was still wearing them. There would still be another 3 or 4 signatures added after these pictures were taken, but I was nearing the end of my private little party and wanted to grab these in case another chance didn't come up.

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My next stop was at a mall on the way home. I decided that I just wasn't ready to remove my new best friends yet, so I figured I could afford a half hour stop at a mall to try to attract a little more attention.

I sat on a bench and just watched people as they passed. Most didn't even look at me. Some of those who did at least looked back again to verify that they saw what they thought they saw. One teenage girl poked her friends and made them look back at me too. They laughed at me. Does anybody understand why somebody would laugh at someone with two broken arms? Perhaps they laughed because I looked like I was looking for attention. I guess I'll never know.

I continued my bolder practice of asking people to take a picture of me, then getting their signature after they snapped the photo.

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Technically, it was cheating. My original premise was that I couldn't solicit attention and that was what I was doing. But I wanted people to notice my casts and ask me about them and the original idea wasn't yielding enough for my taste, so I changed my tactics a bit.

I think, when I do this again, I will try telling people that I really was injured in a fall or something and that I'm collecting signatures from every stranger that asks about them. That would eliminate people thinking I'm wierd. I know I'm wierd, everyone reading this knows I'm wierd, but it still bothers me to be told so. I was especially bothered by that J.A.P. saying again and again that I'm a "whack job" (just a note: As I'm writing this, I've already done this whole thing again. On Friday, September 1st, I did a left arm SATS and a right arm SAC. Got lots of pictures too. And bumped into somebody who knows me...my heart raced and I...well, that's for the next update. Watch for it in a week or so)

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I only got two pictures in the mall. I watched a lot of people going by but was afraid to stop them. You have to understand the way I've evolved on this casting thing since finding the Internet. It took me a long time to work up the courage just to go out in public. After finally making the transition from closet caster to public caster, I was surprised to find out how little attention a cast really gets. Oh, some people notice, but most don't even give you a second glance.

Then there were several times that I put myself in a dual LAC or dual SAC configuration fully intending to go publicking, but chickening out at the last moment. This was the first time that I brought the fantasy to fruition. And what a blast it was. I've got two rolls of bright yellow in my truck to do it all again today if I have the time.

Anyway, these last pictures were snapped of the casts after I removed them. They are close up and at different vantage points so you can see all the signatures.

Thanks for sharing my little adventure with me. I hope you've been able to enjoy it even a little bit as much as I did. Please respond to my inquiry below. I've been dying to talk to somebody about this and haven't had a single dialogue with anyone. I've created a link to a message I put up on the OAG message board so that the conversation about this will be there for all to see and hopefully bring other readers to Fiberglass Rules for a look see.

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