One day, a friend and I were waiting in the lobby for an audition. The door swings open across the way and out pops Chris. My friend waves and Chris waves back. So in turn, I wave. My friend looks at me and goes, “How do you know Chris?” And I said, “His name is Matt.” He laughs and says, “Uhh. no, It’s Chris.” I reply, "I’m pretty sure he stood behind me the other day when we did SNL." He assured me that I was mistaken and I shrugged and said, "oh well" and went on with my day.

Flash forward to the next week. It was one of the hottest days in June 2017. (It was hovering right around "you could fry an egg on the sidewalk" and the surface of the sun.) I step out of my apartment in Washington Heights to head to an orientation for a job deep in Brooklyn. I turn the corner to see that the subway was closed off. I thought that was strange and checked the prices to take an uber instead. The prices were surging and it was $300 to get there! Yup. THREE. HUNDRED. DOLLARS. I called my manager, told her the situation and asked her if it was still necessary to go. She said, “Take the bus. Go make friends.” (And all I thought was how much I did not need one more friend.)

Turns out, the A train had derailed and caused insane delays. So onto the bus I go. Several overheated, over-it hours later, the bus breaks down on the side of the road. (Even public transit seems to have a meltdown in this sort of weather.) I hop on bus two and finally make it down to the Brooklyn Navy yard… 4.5 hours later!!!

You are probably wondering, didn’t you miss the orientation? Yes, yes I did. I walk in to find the guy who hired me finishing up orientation for two people. I apologetically tell him how sorry I was for being so incredibly late and he says, "I told your agent you didn’t have to come!" You could imagine the steam that was coming out of both ears at that point.

Since I was there, he ended up giving me an orientation that lasted all of TWO minutes. He starts to lead me to the way out and sitting there is that same guy from the audition lobby. Chris. He also apologizes about being so late and I immediately yell out, "where do you live?!" And Chris replies, "Washington Heights." And I respond, "you’re coming home with me!" (It was not a romantic gesture. It was survival. If I was going to suffer through transit, at least I’d have company—and a cheaper Uber.)

So I crash HIS orientation for the next two minutes. Then we head back uptown via bus (we are nothing if not optimistic). We start chatting, and it turns out we have a ridiculous number of mutual friends, we’ve even done some of the same jobs. Just at different times. The overlap was wild. Eventually I decide I need food and tell Chris I’m getting off the bus. I ask him to join me and he is reluctant. I tell him I’m getting off with or without him. We end up grabbing food near Radio City, talk more, laugh more, and by the end of the day, I thought, okay, I have a new best friend!

Little did I know... I really did make a best friend! For life!