Recommended wine for today’s entry: 2006 Louis M Martini Cabernet Sauvignon from Sonoma. It was ranked 33rd out of nearly 5,000 wines on eBacchus.com. http://www.ebacchus.com/winereviews-31966-8-Louis-M-Martini-Cabernet-Sauvignon-Red.phtml. Wine Spectator gave it an 87 and it looks like it’s around $15.
I know I promised the story of when I met the Backstreet Boys, but my Brad Paisley encounter was much more amusing. Sometimes I wonder if he’s gotten over me yet.
A couple years after meeting my bff Melissa Joan Hart, I was back at the same Derby eve event. A couple years older, not one bit more mature. Or sophisticated.
My husband and I got bumped to a table that was 60 percent empty (hmmm…) and the other two people were on the far side of the circular ten-top. In other words, I only had the hubbie to talk to and we’d been at the track together all day. We’d run out of conversation by about the sixth race and I’d lost every penny I’d bet all day, including when I used my double-up-to-catch-up strategy there at the end. To cheer ourselves, we grabbed dirty martinis with extra olives on our way in.
Soon after we arrived, someone from the next table, a business associate of my husband’s, came over and yelled in my ear, above the music: Hey, you like country music, don’t you?? Is that Brad Paisley at our table? Someone said it is, but none of us like country music and no one is talking to him … everyone is just talking to his date, Kimberly Williams.
OH, I exclaimed, It IS! It IS Brad Paisley! It really IS!
If you have a mental picture of your dog when he sees the tennis ball, you’re not alone.
I have to go, I explained to my husband. They need me at the next table. I fluffed my hair and yanked my skin taut and told it to “stay.” Then I bit my lips, which is what I do to give my lips a lot of color for free. And without that waxy, slimy feeling. Then I sallied forth.
Well, about two steps toward the table, my brave façade began to crumble. What am I gonna say to him? I thought. Well, because he was only four steps away, my brain didn’t have time to formulate an answer, so I went with stream-of-consciousness.
This rarely works well for me.
First, I squatted down next to his chair like Yadier Molina behind the plate. Now how many times have you watched an awards show on TV? All the beautiful women in beautiful dresses? OK. Now how many of them squatted on the floor? None.
Right.
So, there I squatted, and he leaned in to hear what I had to say. But I didn’t have anything to say. Here’s what was in my head: OhmyGod, OhmyGod, that’s him, that’s his white hat, he’s so close, if I stick my tongue all the way out it would touch his white hat and then I could tell my friends that I licked Brad Paisley’s white hat OhmyGod I might really lick Brad Paisley’s white hat.
I took a deep breath. ACT LIKE A 40-YEAR-OLD.
After a long pause, I bit my lips hard again because I could feel all the blood pooling in my squatted-on ankles and I knew my lips would be pale again, then finally I spoke:
Me: Hey, you’re Brad Paisley. (I was a communications major)
Him: Yes, ma’am.
Me: You sing country music. (cum laude)
Him: Yes, ma’am.
Me: Oh. I like that. I like country music.
Him: Thank you ma’am.
Me: I like you. Very much. (Ok, he’s getting that panicked look in his eyes, like when you pick up the cat and they think it’s just for a hug but then they see that you’re not right and you’re putting them into the carrier and they don’t know how to get away…)
Him: Thank you ma’am.
Me: Are you gonna sing tonight?
Him: No, ma’am, I don’t really think this is my audience.
Me: What do you mean? Demographically? Are you thinking that people who go to fancy balls don’t listen to country music? Sure we do – and this is Kentucky. I mean, I may look all duded up and all, but I got this dress on sale and it probably didn’t cost more than, oh, I don’t know, like a pair of jeans, it was just on sale and all and I don’t even get my nails done, I just put like clear nail polish on myself, I did it in the car on the way here in fact …
Him: Uh-huh, yeah, you look real nice.
Me: If I find my camera, can we get a picture? When I said the “p” in picture, just a little spray of spittle escaped and hit him on the cheek. I couldn’t stop staring at it.
Him: Sure, yeah.
Me: If I find it and we do it – I mean, if we get out picture taken – do you want me to send you a copy? OK, here I was teasing him, but I think he was already freaked out. And he really wanted me to leave so he could wipe my spit off his cheek.
Him: Uh, yes, ma’am, that’d be real nice.
OK, now he looked like he wanted to take his butter knife to his wrist under the table.
Just when I figured he would dump his drop-dead gorgeous girlfriend for me, I tried to get up from my prolonged squat.
My knee made this grinding noise that could be heard over the music and I spilled a dollop of martini on what should have been the floor, but the crinolines in my on-sale dress had all wadded up and were stuck in their squat shape. Now I had a normal torso that ballooned into gigantic hips.
So I smiled and made my way to the bathroom to pull down the itchy wad of crinolines. And when I did get the dress back into its rightful (though still ugly) shape, the martini spill lined up right about crotch-level. Perfect.
I believe I bit my lips extra hard then and made my way back to my nearly empty table.
Brad left before I found my camera. Imagine that.
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