A Little Unexpected

Something neat happened to me today.

I was in a PetSupermarket with my dad over near the New Hope Commons Shopping Center. We were looking for a collar for my dog; she kept on breaking out of her current one and running amok through the neighborhood, causing as much terror and mayhem as a 12 pound daschund possibly can. We gave up after a couple minutes when we realized that we didn't know our dogs neck size (which, of course, all good pet owners should know), and decided instead to look at some of the animals. They were all in the front of the store, on a large round table divided into sections by thick panes of glass; the parakeets over here, the rabbits next to them, a couple of guinea pigs over to the right.
My dad was taunting some bemused looking ferrets, when I looked through the glass and saw two guys at the counter. One was standing back, looking around at the store and occasionally glancing to the cashier at his left. He wasn't anything special; just a tall black guy in a pair of black shorts and a wine red baseball cap. The second guy was talking to the cashier, who was nodding and occasionally pointing to things in the back. The guy was tall, skinny, and that kind of black that almost looked Hispanic. He had a long face, topped off with a coal black Yankees hat, and some strange pointed earrings jutting out from his ears. He looked extremely familiar, which was odd, because I don't know that many tall, twentysomething black guys. I was staring intently at him, when he glanced over to the pet table. Our eyes locked for a second, and I thought Wow, he looks a lot like Danny Greene.
That was it. He turned back to the cashier and pointed to a row of cages, and my dad made a remark about the chinchillas looking like crosses between rabbits and rats. The ferrets went back to sleep about a minute later, and we walked out of the store.
My dad stopped right outside the door and looked around. I glanced back through the big show window and said, "You know, that guy in there looked a lot like Danny Greene."
My dad chuckled. "That's probably because he is Danny Greene."

At that moment, the door tinkled open, and Danny Greene walked out.

My dad stood there and smiled. "Great job, Danny", he said, then stretched his arm out towards the only UNC player ever to score more than a thousand points in his career. For one bizarre moment, it looked like he was going to punch him. Then Danny Greene smiled a bit, reached out, and gave my dad a fist bump. "Thank you, thank you", he said, and then he walked away, loping off to his car like one of those old flightless birds you see in Discovery Channel specials.
I didn't get a fist bump. I was standing near the trash can the whole time, thinking Holy shit, my dad just got a fist bump from Danny fucking Greene! You could say I was a little star struck.
Driving home a couple minutes later, my dad told me Danny was probably getting something for his pet snake. "Cool", I said, which is really the only thing you can say to such things. I then mentioned that Orlando Bloom had been in Brightleaf Square the other night.
"Really?" asked my dad. "How do you know?"
"A girl from school got her picture taken with him. It's her profile on Facebook."
My dad sighed a little. "Now, thats a shame."
"Why?"
"Well, that poor guy's just finished shooting a movie, and he's tired, and he wants to get something to eat. But when he goes to the restaurant, there's, what, 50 teenage girls asking for a picture." He adjusted the rear view mirror a bit. "He'll never have any more privacy."

The car turned onto the highway, and I wondered how many artists really wanted fame. Then we saw a sedan stuck in a ditch, and we talked about that instead.

We'll make a film about a man who's sad and lonely
And all I gotta do is act naturally.