I’m a huge fan of Kathy Griffin. I like her snarky, irreverent take on celebrity and all the bullshit that goes with it. About four or five months ago I heard her on Ryan Seacrest talking about her show “My Life on the D List” and about her up-coming comedy tour. She announced she’d be in L.A. this month, and I immediately called my husband and told him I wanted to go.

Now, I married at straight man, so it would be overstating it—a lot—to say that he was excited to go, but he agreed. And being the good husband that he is, he busted his butt and worked some connections and got fantastic tickets. I mean, like totally bitchin’.

The show was this Friday. We’ve had our tickets for months, but as we’re walking into the the theater and being led to our seats we’re told that the tickets we have are house seats—aka, the ones they usually reserve for celebrities. So, of course, I’m giddy because we’ve clearly got awesome seats. And we did. We had a stage-level box! We were about 5 feet from the stage! Then they told us a celeb called a couple of days ago, wanting tickets to see the show and they were going to put her in our box with us. Sure, whatever. I don’t care. And, apparently, they told this celeb that someone else was in the box and asked if she would mind sharing. She said she didn’t mind.

So we’re hanging out in the box, watching the audience file in. I got a little giddy when I saw Perez Hilton come in carrying a huge Sephora bag, because you know— two of my guilty pleasures—gossip and Sephora!

Just as the lights dimmed and the show was about to start, Cher and her friend walk in and sit in the box with us. Cher! I mean, how fucking cool is that?! She’s a legend. I’ve been sort of fan since I was a kid and watched the Sonny and Cher show. And she hangs in some major company—Tina Turner and Oprah! I tried to play it cool, like I’m totally indifferent to her sitting two feet away from us, even though I’m singing “Believe” and “If I Could Turn Back Time” in my head. I’m also running through the list of my gay boyfriends who would kill to be sitting there, and wondering if I could text them to brag without being obvious.

But I was suddenly totally self-conscious about having Cher sitting behind me.

Apparently, she was totally self-conscious about having a couple of total unknowns in her box.

Right before Kathy came onstage, theater management came up and asked if we’d mind switching seats. They had equally good seats on the other side of the theater for us if we moved.

Dude. We were fucking dissed by Cher.

I guess she wasn’t so cool with sharing the box after all. I guess the thought process was, “I’m fucking Cher and I don’t KNOW these people, so I’m going to play the ‘I’m Cher’ card.”

I kind of felt like I was back in high school—expelled from the cool table in the cafeteria for some unknown infraction.

What was sort of impressive about this was that the entire thing happened in just a couple of minutes. It was quick and stealthy. We never even saw it coming.

We didn’t have to move, and I doubt anyone would have pursued it if we had refused, but we agreed. Whatever. It was clearly an issue for her. They moved us to an empty box directly across the theater from the one we were in. They were very apologetic and bending over backwards to make sure we were okay with this.

Living in Southern California I’ve seen my share of celebrities. My biggest sighting was having dinner at a table next to Sean Connery. Bill and I have had dinner sitting just a few feet away from Warren Christopher and we’ve met A Well-Known Sex Symbol Who Is Famous For Frolicking On The Beach. It’s cool, but they’re just people, and after my initial thrill, I’m over it. But I get it—celebs get bugged a lot and have psycho fans and threatening stalkers. I’m sure they get uncomfortable with people they don’t know.

But something about this situation  bugs me, I guess. My initial reaction was, Suck It, Cher! We’ve had these seats for months. YOU move. But, of course, it doesn’t work that way. The power that celebrities have in this town is ridiculous. For a split-second I felt kind of shitty.

In the long run, it wasn’t a big deal. We moved. We still had amazing seats. I didn’t have to worry about being self-conscious. And about halfway through the show Kathy does a bit about idolizing Cher and getting the chance to spend the day with her, and they put the house lights on Cher. If we were sitting there I would have been mortified.

I like the irony of the night, though. Kathy’s schtick is all about trying to climb up the celebrity ladder and repeatedly getting kicked down a rung or five. That was us—banished to the other side of the theater.

Relegated to the “Z List” where I belong.