7/25/07--My brush with greatness (or maybe you'd call it "celebrity")

So this morning, its about 8:45am and I get a call from my friend Pat, who's the director of the jury room in the courthouse I work in.  She tells me that I need to get to the courtroom right away, and she has a pretty serious tone to her voice.  Guilty me, I'm figuring I somehow had screwed up one of the jury forms I turn in after a trial or something and head down there.  I walk into the office and Pat looks at me with a very serious look on her face.  My mind is racing as I try to figure exactly what it is that I've done or might have done that has me in a world of trouble.
She motions for me to go into the back room of the jury office.
I don't know what it is, but I gotta be in some sort of deep shit.

She opens the door and I see three people sitting in chairs.  My first thought is that there's some sort of party for somebody (but not me) and she decided to invite me.
The guy on the left is pretty ordinary....the woman on the right is pretty hot, and looks vaguely familar...but I can't place her.  And then I look to the guy in the middle.  And my friend Pat is standing there with her arm around:
The Rock....wrestling champion, action film star and (from Pat's point of view) all around hunk.

And I realize that Pat had been pulling my leg---damn, she ought to play poker.  The little s.o.b. would make a lot of money.  And its there that she introduced me to the Rock.  Former pro wrestling star---for the most part successful Hollywood film star.
He was totally gracious and nice.  Pat put me over by saying that "Jeff used to write for a bunch of wrestling magazines I think".  He asked which one, and I told him that I used to do some writing for Dave Meltzer years before---he even smiled when I mentioned Dave's name!  (Go figure)  I told him that I had been a fan since around 1971 and that it was the legacy that my grandmother had left me with.  I told her that my grandmother used to watch his father when he was in Mid-Atlantic wrestling as Sweet Ebony Diamond.  He sorta laughed and said:
"Oh yeah....the old Carolina territory."

Totally nice guy....the woman was his (ex?) wife Dani--very nice looking.  And get this, the guy comes to the courthouse for stinkin jury duty!!!  (He didn't get picked)  I thought that was pretty cool that he didn't just try and blow it off, ya know?


So I go back to my courtroom, and my judge does the daily calendar call.  We get a break in the action and I tell her that I had a brush with greatness in the jury room.
"Whatta ya mean?" she asks me.
"Down in the jury room judge," I said, "on jury duty today...I got to meet.....The Rock."
"Who's that?"  (Big letdown for me)
"Ya know....The Rock...the guy that was the wrestler and now he's a movie star....does all the action movies and stuff."
"But I don't watch wrestling."
"Yeah, I know....but come on...judge!  The Rock!"
"Um...yeah....uh..."

She had ZERO idea who he was.  I can understand not being a wrestling fan....but she obviously pays no attention to pop culture.  I mean, I can't stand Paris Hilton...but I know who she is, ya know?


Later,
Jeff