Tour guide tales from the Empire State Building

NEW YORK, May 17, 2009 — When Don Smith and Leighton Edwards signed up to sell tour tickets outside the Empire State Building they expected insulting rejections and tired feet.

But what they got is a comedy show.

“This dude jogging the other day, and was jogging full speed, coming passed the Empire State Building,” Smith, 30, said. “And he saw this girl, looked real nice, and he turned to look at her – ran dead into the pole and knocked out his front teeth.”

Did you help him out? Call an ambulance, maybe?

“No, we laughed,” he said. “It was just mad funny when we saw it.”

Sometimes the joke’s on them.

Edwards, 21, is trying to save money for college. Selling tickets is not always a fun job, but he said sometimes you just have to laugh at yourself.

“You see loads and loads of people, so literally when you finish with one you got to turn around and go to the next person. One time I turned around and I just butchered it man, I butchered the whole speech,” Edwards said. “It was funny. They’re looking at me like I’m crazy and I was just laughing cause I messed up. I’m like, ‘You know what? There’s the door.’ I just pointed, ‘There’s the door.’”

With thousands of people passing by each day Edwards has seen it all – good, bad, funny – but overall he said it’s worth it.

“Honestly, I love it. I know how to deal with people,” he said. “Individual-wise, people, I would say, some of them, they stink. I would say sometimes I really hate people, I can’t stand it. Because sometimes I would open the door for somebody then the [explicative] wouldn’t say thank you. At least be moral, acknowledge me or something, you know?”

“But humanity collectively as a whole, beautiful, beautiful set of people,” he added. “Even as vile and as foul as people can be sometimes, beautiful.”