Right now we're hanging out in the San Jose airport, waiting for two parts to be flown in from two separate places in order for our plan to be repaired and to get us home.
I should mention that I'm a frequent but slightly nervous flyer, and I was somewhat apprehensive already about the weather forecast in Austin this evening (high winds and cloud-to-ground lightning strikes) especially after watching this amazing video of a Lufthansa jet from yesterday:
But then, as we were readying to board, the gate announces that, "yes, folks, there's some sort of mechanical issue with two of the parts." Turns out, funny story, that the two broken pieces must be flown in from two separate places and then, if all the elements magically cohere into a seamless solution , they'll fix the plane and off we'll go, 4 hours late. Easy peasy.
Back to the Admirals Club where Frank's nice smile and status card implies "do you know who I am?" So we get ticketed on a later flight just in case ours is cancelled (which at this writing seems likely, much to my relief).
But the best part? the truly best part? I was sitting here minding my own business when I hear behind me a man answering his call phone. "Hello?" he says, "Oh, Barack! Hi How are you?" My heart skipped a beat. Did he really say that? Oh to be so close to greatness! The man listened for a good while and made some vague comments about 8-month strategy and "I agree that that's the road to take" while I glared at everyone around me to shut up so I could hear what he was saying. Just as I was beginning to doubt what I'd heard, he very clearly said "Ok, sounds great. I'll call you later on your cell (oh to be a fly on his shoulder). Talk to you soon, Barack."
Frank was laughing his arse off at my starstruck expression, and then again when he dared/urged me to go up to the man to ask him about the phone call. I didn't. I couldn't figure out a non-creepy way to ask him about the call on which I'd been eavesdropping. But I like the idea that I was 2 feet from greatness.
As a disclaimer: I have met and even been flirted with by celebrities (fine, it was during my college years) and shrugged it off. It surprises me how giddy it made me to think that the dude I was sitting behind was talking to Barry. Ah, Barry.
I'm a total eavesdropper too. You should have just said that you are nosey. People respect that...and everyone likes to feel important.