Let me start off by saying I pride myself on being a person who doesn’t gawk over seeing a celebrity.  My thinking goes, hey, these are regular people who have to deal with this shit all day long from school girls and crazies, I don’t want to get in the mix.  Living in New York and having the chance to travel a bit I have run into my fair share.  Saw Ryan Reynolds and Alanis Morissette in New Zealand and didn’t say anything.  No jokes about having ‘10,000 spoons’ and still looking for that fucking knife.  Nothing.  And we were in New Zealand…nobody knew they were in the presence of one of the guys from “Two Guys, A Girl and A Pizza Shop.” 

Saw Regis yesterday filming a commercial and I barely even stopped.  Not even the thought of yelling “where’s Gelman?”

I always said there were a few choice celebs I would ever even try to talk to in person…number 1 being of course Tom Brady.  The man, the myth, the legend.  My thought was that I would see him standing there and I would walk up and say “Thank you sir.”  That’s it.  No handshakes, no autographs, nothing. 

So you could imagine I was caught off guard today when I was getting a coffee in the mom and pop establishment Starbucks; I turn around and none other than Captain Derek Jeter himself.  Not my Captain…no, but living in New York, he was their captain. 

In none of my T. Brady fantasies did Jeter ever pop in to my head.  I’m from Boston.  We don’t operate like that. Still, I thought, this is the one guy Boston fans do kind of respect in a “I want the whole stadium to blow up but if Jeter got out alive it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world” way.

So I’m at the sugar and cream station (at this mom and pop place, they let you put it in yourself…pretty cool right!) and he is waiting for me to move out of the way.  And I watch as some 50 year old man nervously walks up and asks for Jeter to sign a piece of paper.  Ha!  An autograph.  What an amateur.  Doesn’t he know anything?  “Fuck it” I say to myself.  It’s go time. 

So as I move out of the way (after 2-3 full minutes of planning) he remarks “there ya go.”  “There ya go.” We’re pals! Ok, I need something to let him know that I am a Red Sox fan and just because I am in his presence I will not bow down to his pinstriped, Mentos uniform wearing pretty boy stature.  Here goes.

“You gotta stop killing the Red Sox…” I mumble.  

“What?”

“You gotta stop killing the Red Sox.”

“Start or stop?”

“Stop…uhhh, killing the Red, my Red, I’m a Bos, stop killing my Red Sox…”

“Very Funny.” (not amused)

Now after I left I realized since the Yankees have not won a game against Boston all year, he very much thought I was ragging on him.  I wish I were that clever.  I would have delivered it with some zing!  But no, just a bunch of mumbles, ahhhhhs and Sox, killing, stops thrown in there. 

And that is how I made fun of Derek Jeter to his face.

And that is why you never talk to celebrities.