Tell us some wacky celeb stories, Uncle Chasen!
Ok. I will share a few to reminisce now that my days as a gate agent are numbered.
There was once a celeb who missed a flight going to Sacramento. Not to Montana. Just thought I'd throw that out there. Anyway, flight was delayed about an hour, we page and page to try to get him/her/it/blonde/brunette on the flight. The flight was posted for 1701 or something. Our friend shows up to the gate at about 1730, they were on the way to the gate, heard the pages, and figured "Hey I'm so important they're holding the plane for me, I'm gonna visit duty free!". Well our friend walked all the way to the International Terminal just to find out Duty Free doesn't count Sacramento as an international city and would not sell this person anything(not to mention this person was under 18 in the first place). After throwing a tantrum which included a pterodactyl impression, I decided I would be nice and rebook this person on the next flight since it was wide open and leaving in just 45 minutes. This person then informed me that it is a 20 minute drive, as opposed to a 30 minute flight, from San Francisco to Sacramento. I did not know this. As such, this person decided it would be faster to have their escort rent a car and drive there rather than wait 45 minutes for a flight. After refunding the ticket which was worth a whole $13.43 IIRC, this person was on their way. I do not argue with these people, I simply say something like "Oh, its a 20 minute drive, would you like to rent a car?" and go from there. Flying and driving, I guess that way you get the best of both worlds.
I once had an awkward conversation with a LARGE celebrity who looked a little LOST. This man was traveling with his mother and grandmother and had a total of 6 boarding passes with him, which should have been my first hint. After a nice conversation, I ask him "You're pretty famous man, you don't ever fly first class?". He looked at me the same way a person with no arms would look at you if you asked them if they play baseball and said "I don't fit in the seats". It is then I noticed he was taking up 2 and a half chairs in the waiting area. After an awkward silence I went back to my duties. We had a miscount on that flight, the flight attendant looked at the paperwork which had 3 more people than I had in the count. She calls me back onto the airplane to explain why this is. I walk to the rear of the airplane and she explains the discrepancy. The ease dropping celebrity in the last row, before I can answer, coughs very loudly and deliberately and gives the flight attendant the same look I got from him upstairs. I didn't have to say a word and she accepted my headcount. I'm sure he had a great experience with the sensitive employees at our airline.
While most celebrities I meet act just like everyone around them, one stands out for demanding special attention. I met an airplane and a man who looked Stone Cold and may have possibly, at one point, lived in Austin stepped off. He was furious that in the 20 seconds between the plane getting chocked, me driving the jetway, and him getting up from seat 1A and taking 2 steps to get off the airplane, his gate checked bag wasn't waiting for him. He demanded I go down on the ramp and look for a carry-on sized black bag with rolling wheels and hand it to him because he is a celebrity and a First Class passenger and he will not wait in a cancer filled jetway. I told him to wait on the right hand side of the wall like everyone else. He again told me who he was. I again asked him to please settle down and wait for the bag. He told me his name again, with the F word thrown into it for emphasis. I told him my name was Hank Mardukas, and it was nice to meet him. He made it clear that he didn't care who I was, but loudly stated he always gets special treatment on American and will never fly my airline again. At this point, the wheelchair agent who was waiting in the jetway pointed at the big orange "wait on the opposite wall for bags" sign, and said "Man, it doesn't say to wait for bags UNLESS you're (a stone cold man who may be from Austin)". Everyone laughed, he seemed embarrassed, grabbed the first black bag to come up, turned out to be the wrong bag, the person who took his bag never told anyone so they must have liked his belongings better, we never found his bag. He threatened to sue the airline, we told him to have a nice day, he wrote a letter about me being a bad person along with every other person in a uniform he talked to, we all got a laugh out of it, I was flattered he remembered my name, the end.
That's about it with celebrity stories, I've met a lot of them, but most are just nice people and the encounters are uneventful.
