Ok readers, you asked for it and here it is. The winning story from Friday's "Choose Your Own Adventure" post:
Let's flash back a moment, ten years ago (has it been THAT long???) to 1999 where a young, post-college Glamour Girl was taking New York City by storm. I had signed up with a temp agency that specialized in the entertainment industry. They would send me on jobs to places such as Comedy Central, Miramax, Sony, Vogue (insert oooohs and aaawwhs here!).
Of course working in places such as these led to many interesting experiences. One such experience happened when I got a call from my agency to report for a two month gig at CBS's As the World Turns.
After working at CBS headquarters for awhile, I learned that the studio where the CBS Evening News was filmed was in fact right off the main lobby of the building. As I walked by one evening on my way out, to my surprise, the door to the studio had a window. I peeked in and there he was - Dan Rather! Doing the freaking 6:00 news! I was watching something in person that the rest of the country was at home watching on their television. It was such a weird feeling!
So, I made a habit out of peeking in the window every night on my way out the door. Ya know, not stalking or anything, just checking in on Dan, still surprised that anyone working in the building could just peek in this window anytime and watch. What if I waved or made a face at him? Would he notice?
One afternoon, I was standing out in front of the building waiting for delivery of an URGENT, VERY IMPORTANT, LIFE ALTERING package (if you've ever worked in NY, you know that everything at work is URGENT, VERY IMPORTANT and LIFE ALTERING!). The CBS building is on the very west end of town, isolated, in an area with not much foot traffic. I glanced to my left to see a well-dressed man in the distance walking toward the building. There was no one else around him.
As he got closer, I couldn't believe my eyes - it was DAN!!! Yes, of course we were on a first name basis at this point. He was just waltzing into work all by himself, no entourage, no limo, not even a taxi dropping him off. It's like he just parked in the nearest garage and walked on over to work like a normal person.
Now usually I have this well-crafted facade I put on when in the presence of a celebrity (What? Oh - I totally didn't even notice Brad Pitt standing right beside me. My, I barely even know who he is. Even if I did, I wouldn't care because he's just a normal person like everyone else. DUH!). Dan must have thought I was some kind of moron because I was in a complete daze at this point and rendered uterally speechless. He looked right at me, smiled and said, "Hi, how are you?" and walked right in the door. I'm sure I probably managed to smile, nod, or maybe even utter some type of sound resembling a word. Not sure.
You know how I've mentioned recently that sometimes the imaginary life in your head is better than real life? Well, after Dan walked in the building, I smiled smugly. "Oh yeah," I thought to myself, "I bet this whole time he's been spying on me and stalking me too! I bet he even has a CRUSH on me!"
and I'd Rather just leave it at that...
