It was a lovely Friday morning in October when I headed to the San Francisco airport at 4:30am, for a 6am flight to Los Angeles. It was the first of the three flights that I was taking to get into Fort Myers, Florida. Luckily, I had the good fortune of being upgraded to First Class (thanks, United).
I boarded the plane early, put my bag and my tennis racket in the overhead compartment, sat down in my window seat and promptly closed my eyes. I must have fallen asleep immediately because I was startled when I was nudged. There was a man standing over me, asking if the tennis racket in the compartment above was mine. I was sleepy and a bit out of it, so nothing registered immediately. It was probably only seconds, but seemed like minutes before I realized that when asked a question, it's commonplace to provide an answer. I finally came to and told the nice man that the racket was in fact mine. He asked if he could move it to lay across the top of his bag, so he didn't break the strings. How considerate! Of course my answer was yes. He then sat down in the seat next to me.
All I really wanted to do was sleep. It was 5:30am, I had already been up for hours and I had a long day of travel ahead of me. As I closed my eyes again, it occurred to me that the thoughtful man looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn't put my finger on it. I drifted off to sleep again. The last thing I remember was hearing the guy next to me order a vodka.
I woke up just as we were about to land. The flight attendant was asking the guy next to me for his autograph. He was definitely some sort of celebrity, but I still had no idea who he was. Once we touched down and the seat belt sign was no longer illuminated, the guy seated next to me stood up to retrieve his bag. He handed me my tennis racket and smiled before taking his own bag down. At that moment, I realized who he was...Robin Thicke!
Vodka at 5:30am? No wonder his lines are blurred!!
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