Meeting the Man before the Second Coming (not Jesus)
December 5, 2007Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its 5-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and… wait, that’s my letter to William Shatner. Sorry.
Anyways, I’m sure many of you out there have had those birthdays; the one you claim is the greatest one ever. Odds are any readers over the age of 21 would claim their 21st as their best. I did to until recently, even though my 21st consisted of me nearly wetting my pants and having a heart attack simultaneously at the sight of most of my friends and family yelling “SURPRISE” inside of my dad’s bar. I never had a surprise party before, and let me tell you, it is one of those events that leave you feeling good inside afterwards. This was true here, especially after I got over the initial shock of people scaring the living daylights (not the James Bond movie) out of me.
After I had my face shoved into a cake and had a few beers with my father; my friends and I took our adventure downtown, where I was treated to a night of free drinks. How can a night like that possibly be topped?
Well, meeting one of your favorite entertainers can easily top that, no matter how many free drinks you were given.
Let’s fast forward to October 29, 2007, the day of my 23rd birthday, where I had just received the news that television personality, actor, rock star, and former wrestler Chris Jericho was going to be signing copies of his book, A Lion’s Tale: Around the World in Spandex, in the Barnes and Nobles at the University of Pennsylvania. I figured that this would be a decent way to spend my birthday; getting my copy of his book signed and getting to shake hands with him. But I was wrong on how decent it would be. Dead wrong.
I figured the meeting would go something like this; I walk up with my book, we shake hands, he asks how I’m doing, then I move on so the next person can meet him. Basically, my idea of what meeting a famous person was always like, similar to the times I met both Eric Idle of Monty Python, and Triple H, another wrestler.
Instead, it turns out my obsessive need to always have an eye-catching shirt or hoodie actually paid off, thanks to one Joe Gariffo, who bought me a hoodie with “No Time for Love, Dr. Jones” written across the front. I hope I don’t have to explain the reference. Seriously.
As I walk up to Jericho while he is saying goodbye to the person in front of me, he glances over and sees the phrase on my hoodie. He gets a huge laugh out of the phrase and asks me where I got it from even before I got a chance to sit down. I explained that the hoodie was a gift from a good friend of mine to celebrate my birthday today and even told him the website where he got it from. Jericho and I then geek out and proceed to have a five minute discussion about the new Indiana Jones movie. He even gave Shia LaBeouf his seal of approval. And for some reason I felt the urge to tell him I was going to a costume party as Indy. Jericho laughed, signed Happy Birthday in my book, shook hands with me, and then I walked away.
It was a total geek out moment for me that night, as I talk about my favorite movies with my favorite wrestler (did I not mention that Chris Jericho was my favorite wrestler?). Seriously, it is definitely considered my favorite birthday by a large margin, and I still can’t believe that wearing that hoodie sparked such a geeky discussion. Awesome.
- Mario
