about saying hi to famous people

One time, I messed up Robert Duvall's coffee order. 

During a few of my summer breaks from college, I worked in a coffee shop in my hometown.  It was the best job - except for the day that, as I said, I messed up Robert Duvall's order. 

He and his (super beautiful) wife live in the county I grew up in, but I'd never seen him around town before.  Anyway, one day it was slow and I was reading a book (best employee award to me!) and I look up and there he was.  His wife got a scone (beautiful people eat carbs too) and he ordered a tea.  I acted as normal as I could, said something dumb about it being nice outside (it actually had just thunderstormed) and swiped their credit card, imagining that it had recently been used to purchase private jets and several stacks of gold bricks.  After handing the wife her baked good, it was time for the tea. 

If you've never been a barista, let me fill you in on arduous process of fulfilling a tea-order.  Step one- get the tea bag, Step two- get the water.  Any idiot can do it.  Except for this idiot. 

I guess I was daydreaming about Robert coming back to the counter to tell me how great of a barista I was, after which I would crack some joke and he'd be so impressed by my humor and charm that he'd have me over to dinner, during which I'd bring a manuscript of some fabulous movie I hadn't written in reality yet, and he'd see all my star potential and introduce me to people in high places.  In all that imagining I somehow grabbed the wrong type of tea and then, oh it still hurts to say it, then I SERVED IT TO ROBERT DUVALL. And in that instance, my one shot to stardom died a painful death before my eyes.  He tasted it, kindly said he thought he ordered green tea, I turned the shade of a stop sign, and I went to get him what he actually wanted.  Goodbye, Mr. Duvall.  Goodbye, fame.  Secondhand Lions was really an excellent film.  

Since that day, I haven't really gotten much better at saying hi to famous people.  

This past weekend I went to an amazing conference (there will surely be thoughts on how unbelievable it was, but I haven't quite processed all of them yet) and there were some great speakers.  The final speaker, Donald Miller, was someone whose work as a writer falls so much in line with projects I dream of doing some day, and the language he uses to talk about faith always seems to speak directly to me.  The conference was a really intimate setting and so there were these great opportunities to meet the people who were sharing during the weekend.  After Don (pretending we're on a first-name basis) spoke, I went up and shook his hand.  I wanted to say "Don, thank you for talking about story and why it's important.  I've been thinking about that a lot lately, and your words have meant so much to me. Could we exchange e-mail addresses and be besties?"  Instead I said, "Hi Don, I'm Emily. Thanks a lot!" The end.  Cue long creepy smile and silence.  

Ugh. I'm just bad at this, y'all. (There was even ANOTHER instance with a different speaker my friend and I tried to chat with that exploded in awkwardness in front of our faces, but that's another story for another day).  And being bad at this is the silliest thing in the world.  But I was thinking about it, and I feel that I should actually try harder to say hi to more "celebrities".  Here's why: 

When I'm confronted by people I think are more "important" than me or more "talented" than me, I kind of lift them up beyond the definition of human.  I get clammy.  I feel I am not interesting enough to enter their presence.  I fumble over my words. 

But isn't it true that are all people are just, well, people? And while we should call out each other's talents and celebrate them and acknowledge when they have shaped our lives and meant something to us, we should remember that no one on this earth has more inherent value than we do.  ALL of us have value.  All of us have meaning.  Some of us do cool things that put us in the spotlight, and some of us do cool things that the world doesn't see.  

I want to be honored to meet EACH person I come in contact with, from the least known to the most.  I want to be humbled by them but in that to remember my own value and significance.  

So, if I ever run into Mr. Duvall in future,  I will be handing him a large mug of green tea with a smile. And he'll think I'm a freaky stalker and won't have a clue why I'm doing that, but it's ok.  I'll just tell him that I've been learning a lot from saying hi to celebrities.