In one show, a former local news anchor celebrity was playing a character would be hanged onstage. We were having a harness call to work on the hanging, and the noose kept spinning in circles. So here is this tubby middle aged news anchor spinning around ten feet off the deck, whimpering and getting really sick to his stomach. A few feet away, the Fabio-lookalike director/choreographer is working out the soft shoe routine he will be showing the actors that night. Spinning news anchor, tap dancing Fabio. I just turned to the head carp and said "Some days, I love my job."
#2: My family came to see a show I was doing and helped me clean up props, etc afterwards. At places the next day, I can't find the two felt dog-ears (like, as if ears had been cut off a dog - anyone ever done "Lonesome West"?). They look kind of weird, so I can see how someone would think they were trash. After looking for nearly half an hour, it's 15 to places and I realize they have to be in the trash. So I get my ASM to wrangle the actors to places, I alert the actors to the possibility that we may have no dog ears tonight, and I dive into the dumpster. After 12 disgusting minutes opening each and every bag, waist-deep in all kinds of rubbish, I find the blasted ears. I climb out, compose myself, march into the dressing room holding up the garbage-stinky ears and announce "Places, please."