Wingnut and underwear

As a side note before my next celebrity sighting story, I'd like to point out that you guys don't seem to really like celebrity sighting stories. Either that or I have to use the word "underwear" in my post title to interest people in wandering through ye olde blog. So I'm going to confess that there's not really any underwear involved today, but there is a guy named Wingnut. Now for the eleven of you who are still paying attention...

I managed an upscale women's clothing store in downtown Salt Lake a few years back (like, seven years) and I had a bunch of cute girls that worked for me, and cute customers that came in. My one girl, Amber, was in high demand around town for stuff like fashion shows because she was tall, thin, blonde and striking looking. And also the nicest girl EVER. She and my customer Holly, also a cute thing, got to be good friends and occasionally dragged me out after work to go do stuff around town. Go dancing, hit a party, whatever.

During the Sundance Film Festival, nearby Park City is hopping with stuff going on so one night during the festival, Amber's friend Wingnut came in to convince us to come out with him to a party. (I have no idea what his real name is because that's the only thing anyone ever called him.) He was one of those connected guys who knew everyone and he said that a dance club in Park City called Harry O's was hosting a VIP gig where a bunch of celebrities were going to be hanging out and he wanted us to all go. They cajoled me into it (I actually don't enjoy large crowds of strangers) and off we went.

When we got there, it turned out that the celebrities were all hanging out in a separate VIP room so Holly, Wingnut, and Amber made it their life's mission that night to get in. Since I didn't care, I wandered away to a convenient ringside seat and mentally mocked everyone there because I'm so nice, and also? They totally deserved it. It was excellent people watching.

When the heat and noise got to be too much, I wandered back out to the lobby-ish area and held up a piece of the wall for a while, waiting for everyone else to decide they couldn't crack the VIP room and were ready to leave. Off to my right, I noticed a couple of guys just sitting and shooting the breeze, which seemed a much more fun thing to do than haring all over the place that night looking for celebrities to hang out with. Eventually, Holly, Amber and Wingnut showed up with varying degrees of annoyance and defeat written all over their faces. And then Amber's eyebrows shot up and she nudged Holly, who looked surprised and elbowed Wingnut, and they all turned to stare accusingly at me. Apparently the conversation I had been envying ten feet away from me was taking place between Ben Affleck and his brother, Casey, and I was in trouble for holding out on my friends.

They sauntered over, trying to look cool. I stayed where I was, and after a few minutes, they sauntered back looking defeated again. Wingnut especially had never been denied at the velvet rope to anything before and he was really irritated. Finally accepting that nothing was going to happen and having no access to any after-parties now that Harry O's was closing, we left, and I was happy. I took off with the girls and Wingnut went his way.

Turns out, there was a whole 'nother part of the story after Amber, Holly, and I each had gone home and gone to sleep...

Wingnut left us to go to the 7-11. While he was there, a limo pulls up and Matt Damon and Ben Affleck climb out. They get whatever they're getting and then notice Wingnut. Now Wingnut is one of those guys who just looks like he knows what's going on, because 99% of the time, he does. So they ask him, "Hey, what do you do in Utah at two in the morning?" And he answers, "I got friends. I could call them and we can hang out." And they said, "Cool." So they invite him into their limo and he starts dialing Amber like crazy. But she doesn't answer. Because she left her cell phone somewhere. And when she gets it back the next morning, she has five messages in a row from Wingnut saying something like, "I just ran into Ben Affleck and Matt Damon and I'm in the limo and we'll come pick you guys up. Call me and tell me where you are." But when he couldn't get an answer, he had to start going through the rest of his phone list to call friends.

I guess there ended up being a big party at Matt and Ben's hotel room that night, but because it's Wingnut, they were the only three guys in the whole place. I was only mad at missing out on having a great story to tell. Holly and Amber still bear psychic scars from not getting that phone call, and I do believe that Amber has never misplaced her phone since that day. Our only consolation was that we ended up with Summer Phoenix's pager that night. But that's a whole different story....