“Hey. I can get you into the Bon Jovi concert at Madison Square Garden tonight if you can get down here in 20 minutes.”

I sat on my futon, Cheerios on my knees, hair tied into a messy bun, body exhausted from a typically exhausting Monday, and considered this offer. Am I a big Bon Jovi fan? Not really. But tickets for this thing were going for thousands of dollars, it’s Madison f*cking Square Garden, and breaking up my nightly pattern of Reality TV watching and cereal eating wouldn’t be such a bad idea. Plus, where else could I wear my acid-washed cutoff mom jeans? (Note: this last sentence is not true.)

After putting on my make-up as fast as I could (and hoping the lights would be in full “80′s glow mode” to keep the rest of my post-work face at bay), I slapped on some clothes and tried to tease my hair as high as it would go (Note: this may not be true). I then pushed past the milieu of yuppies on my block and jumped into a cab.

Once en-route, I chatted with the strangely friendly cabbie about where I was going, and he immediately offered $2,000 for my ticket. After telling him I did not indeed have the ticket on my person, he said he would “pull over at the Garden, park the cab, and get my ticket” with me, and then hand over the cash. I doubted he had $2,000 on him, and I can’t imagine how my friend would have reacted to have seen an old cabbie wearing a drug rug in my seat instead of me, so I politely thanked him, tipped him well, and ran inside.

This story could get mighty long if I continued to narrate the entire adventure, so let’s just list some of things I learned / saw once I was surrounded by Jovi mania:

1) Cutoff jeans are the official Bon Jovi fan summer accessory. Shirts with the arms ripped off are also fashion forward for a Jovi fan, as is platinum blond hair with crazy obvious roots.

2) Being a ticket-taker at the Garden during Jovi mania, and denying a few bedazzled teenagers access to the audience will get you a smackdown that sounds like this, “Whatever! We’ll just do whatever! You probably just want to have sex in your ticket booth or whatever! We’re gonna kick the window in! My dad is a lawyer and if he wasn’t vacationing at the Jersey Shore right now he’d kick your ass! F*ck you, you hate Bon Jovi!!“

3) If you stand in front of a woman with radical blonde highlights who is singing / screaming off-tune with John Bon throughout his entire set, your ears will sting real bad the next morning.

4) A guy who dances and moves his arms around exactly like Bon Jovi is weird, and will reveal his weirdness slowly throughout the night, staring at you with increasing intensity.

5) Jovi, as expected, will wear not only a black leather vest with no shirt underneath, but also a flowing red shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest for his signature song “Bed of Roses” (a song which has the very earnest line, “With an ironclad fist I wake up and French kiss the morning“)

6) There will be people from all walks of life at this concert, but mostly, there will be people who somehow buried themselves in a time capsule dated “1986″ and left it for the sole purpose of seeing Jovi at Madison Square Garden

7) No matter how cool you think you are, it’s impossible not to throw your arms up and scream the chorus of “Living on a Prayer”

My mother told me she used to bring tuna sandwiches on matzoh every year every day for all of Passover. I can’t imagine how she did this. Tuna on matzoh is basically disgusting.

But I digress. This morning my Chinese-American-Non-Jew boyfriend walked into our living room, took one look at me eating buttered matzoh, and said, “Hey, Matzoh Girl.”

That was it for me, folks. I am going to document the 8 days of my Passover Diet here on College Candy.

Side Note: I am calling it a diet only in the sense that it is a way of eating. Unfortunately, it is not a losing weight diet. Every year I think it might be. I mean, the Atkins Diet is, right? Unfortunately, every year I also end up eating a lot of cheese and junk food to fill up when bread is not possible, and so it ends up…let’s say evening out. Yeah. Evening out.

So, okay, last night through this morning:

Right before the sun went down, I had my last bread meal before Passover: a chicken gyro. Mmmm. So long, dear pita, I knew you well.

My boyfriend is sympathetic, but doesn’t understand how hard it is to not eat grains. I tell him he’s retarded. We continue on our merry way.

I don’t go to a Seder for the first night because I’m having one with my parents the second night. Instead, the boyfriend and I watch The Thomas Crowne Affair, which totally sucks and is maybe a bad omen of non-bread to come.

This morning, I reach for the Cheerios and then remember it’s Passover and have matzoh with butter instead (cue boyfriend’s “Matzoh Girl” comment). Then I head off to my workstudy job.

On the way, I pick up soup to eat for lunch. The guy behind the counter says, “What kind of bread?” I say, “Oh, no bread.” He says, “It comes with bread.” I says, “That’s okay, thanks.” He says, “Are you sure? No bread?” I finally say, “I can’t, it’s Passover…” And he says, “Okay, okay” like I just told him I have my period or something.

Anyway, the soup sucks and I wish I had bread.

Seder tonight at my parents’. I am desperately hoping for my father’s matzoh ball soup.