My brush-- or sensuous feel-- with fame

A couple of you already know this story, but I was reminded of it again this morning thanks to a radio advertisement.

I went to college with a certain D-list actress by the name of Anna Chlumsky, who recently has done nothing, but who will forever remain in our hearts and minds as the ill-named Vada Sultenfuss of 1991's My Girl (and, of course, 1994's My Girl 2). Since I was a fair child of 13 when this movie came out, of course I saw it and loved it. If any of you hear or have heard me randomly spout, "he can't see without his glasses!", it's my small tribute to My Girl and MacCauley Caulkin's bee-induced demise. And, of course, to Anna's extra-dramatic delivery of this pivotal line (Caulkin is dead, already, see, so he doesn't need his glasses. But Vada is really upset about him being dead. They were friends.).

In any case, Anna was the only celebrity who deigned to study at my uber-nerdy school, so it was a really funny big deal when she was there. So imagine my excitement when we end up in Social Dance class together. The only other thing I remember about her from college is that she dated this Brazilian guy who always wore the tightest jeans possible. Luckily for me, he was not in our dance class.

So picture this: social dance class, nerd school. Dance lesson of the day: the tango. As usual, there were way too many girls in the class and not enough boys, so when we have to pair off to tango, I am paired with. . . Anna Chlumsky. I can barely suppress my giggles as "he can't see without his glasses!!" runs repeatedly through my head. We embrace as if at an 8th grade dance: arms straight out as we touch each other's hands and shoulders, both of us tense and straight. The un-sexiest tango ever. The tango is a fairly intimate dance to be doing with a complete stranger, same-sex or not, but we took discomfort to a new level.

The instructor, however, decides that Anna and I are not nearly intimate enough. He comes over, declares loudly that the tango is a dance of passion, and, with one hand on each of our backs, shoves us together. Now, Anna and I are about the same height, and we are both, um, rather well-endowed through the chesticle area. The result of the instructor's shove sends my boobs smack into Anna's boobs and vice versa. The resulting passionate embrace leaves our boobs lovingly smacked up against each other for the duration of our tango. Had this been a friend of mine, we would have laughed about it. This being a complete stranger-- and not, you know, within the confines of a swingers club-- we were mortified. And our boobs are big!! You couldn't ignore what was going on! If we were in Alabama, we would've been forced into marriage, the way we were touching each other. Anna and I both blushed and neither of us mentioned it as we tangoed our way to friendship. Indeed, Anna and I always said hi to each other after that, and even though we both knew it was because of the time our breasts spent nuzzling each other, we never talked about it.

I was reminded of this story this morning because I heard a movie trailer/advertisement on the radio, and Anna is in it. Not only that, but she's in it enough for the announcer to say "starring Anna Chlumsky" and the other people. I can't remember the name of the movie or even who else is in it, cause the minute I heard her name I was transported back to that romantic day in social dance class. And then came to work to blog about it, because really, who doesn't want to know about my mutual-boob-molestation with a where-are-they-now celebrity??

Lesson of the day: It will all pay off when those passes to the premiere come in the mail. It will aaaaaaaaall pay off.