Brushes With Celebrity...Sort Of

I've spent the past few days working as a cashier instead of my usual job as a sales associate. This has lead me to have two brushes with celebrity recently.

The first one was with the brother of Pittsburgh Steeler Antwaan Randle El. He came to the store and bought a bunch of flag football belts for his brothers' football camp. I told him I went to Thornwood High School, which is in the same district as Randle El's alma mater Thornton. He said it was all good and left.

The other encounter was with R & B singer Dave Hollister. I have to be honest and say that I didn't actually recognize him. However, when he gave me his credit card to pay, I realized who he was. I couldn't really acknowledge that I knew who he was since he was on the phone. I just rang up his purchase and told him to have a good day.

The biggest celebrity encounter I missed happened about a month or two ago. I was working hard in the back of the store on some project. I walked up to the front to get something and found out that I missed an R. Kelly sighting. R. Kelly reportedly lives not very far from the store. Here's the key thing to note about this encounter...R. Kelly did not actually enter our store. He walked past it to go to Borders with his entourage behind him. One of the female associates ran out of the store and to Borders to get his autograph.

You know, if I ever encountered any celebrity outside of work, I'd probably just leave them alone.