I had a celebrity encounter today, sadly
not filthyvermin.
I work at YEG as a screening officer (Canadian equivalent of TSA). Around 1 p.m. today, a guy comes into one of the screening lines, at a time when it wasn't very busy. I'm working at the metal detector with a female partner. He looks really familiar, but I think
no, that can't be him. He was with a woman who wasn't his wife, so I still figure it isn't him. Afterwards, I realize that she was probably a PA or publicist. Anyway, he talks with the officer at the front of the line, and divests. He then approaches my walk-through metal detector, holding his bording pass up to his chest, facing me (but I can't read it, and I wouldn't anyway, since I'm supposed to watch him and the detector).
I'm still not sure it is him, and he is walking very slowly through the detector (which you should not do), so I I am waving to him to try to get him to walk more quickly. He keeps on at the same pace, and makes it through without an alarm. I wave him past me to the bag pick-up lane (since I would treat him like any other passenger, even if I was sure of who he was).
He then starts talking to the female officer who checks the bags which get flagged by the X-ray operator. I know that voice, and now I am sure of his identity. He asks the officer for
her autograph, which she treats as the joke it was. He turns around and speaks to us at the walk-through, and offers his (now useless) hotel key to my partner, which she takes (and keeps, damnit). He then proceeds out into the departure area.
I talked to the officer at the front to try to find out what name was on the bording pass. I thought it might have been his birth name, but he doesn't remember, partly because he didn't know who the guy was. He
did say that the guy asked him to promise not to sell his leather jacket on ebay. The officer's friendly response was that he wouldn't use ebay - he prefers Amazon.
It's too bad that I didn't get an autograph or something, but I am proud to say that we treated him professionally, like any other passenger (even if a lot of us were watching him - like I said, it wasn't busy).
It was this guy: