Neko's entry about seeing the Sting concert made me remember this incident from my past.

Years ago I got a summer job working for the Grand Stand Show at the Stampede, looking after all the costumes and quick changes for what they called the "under 4 foots", which are the child dancers and singers in the show.

Sucky sucky job, let me tell you. The kids were mostly okay, some of them were even cute and sweet, although the 12 year old boys who kept climbing up on the counters to look over the gap at the top of the wall into the room where the teen-aged girls changed drove me nuts. And let me tell you about the Stage Parents. They were fucking frightening. Coming in to the dressing rooms and yelling at me because little Jenny's shoes were a half size too big, blah blah.

There were a ton of quick changes that happened backstage (and that had it's own whole level of creepy, with some of the adult performers standing around staring at the 14 year old girls changing - yuck). So each day, about an hour before the show, I had to scuttle around with a huge arm load of costumes to pre-set backstage. The show takes place in the Grand Stand, after the Chuckwagon races. There's this big rolling stage that they drive in and park in the infield. The dressing areas and the access to infield and what became the backstage after the stage was set, was underground, with these two tiny stair cases on either side leading up to the backstage area. This was also an area where you could sneak someone in the watch the chuckwagon races with a good view but away from the general crowd.

So, this one day I'm rushing around with my huge armload of costumes, head down, and I round the corner to go up the stairs and I run head first into the chest of this man, who's being followed by about 6 other people down the stairs. I look up, mumbling something about "sorry" and look right into the face of Sting. Who's sort of laughing and smiling at me with this huge pile of sparkly sequined clothes in my arms. Then we do that little dance of "I'll go this way to let you get by - no, I'll go this way". He smiles this beautiful smile at me as I'm now babbling like a total idiot, pats me on the shoulder and says "Have a nice day" and walks on with his posse.

I'm standing there thinking "Did I really just crash into Sting? Yes, I think I did". It turns out he was in town doing a concert that night and he arrived early to check out a little of the Stampede (people I know from this cowtown all make faces and go "yuck, Stampede" but it is considered the greatest outdoor show on earth and I guess has some attraction for people not from here). Some big-wig types snuck him down under the Grand Stand to watch the chucks from the infield. So there he was.

Totally hansome. And totally nice. And I crashed right in to him. I just had a little flashback of that story.