A Cowboy’s Wife

I checked in through the self-service machine and noticed the option to upgrade to 1st class. I didn’t even think about it to be honest, I just said heck yeah! Scheduled flight time was 4:40pm. Because of storms, actual flight time was 7:30pm but about 30 minutes before that, here comes a very, very tall fella who I recognized right away. You could hear whispers all around saying, “It’s Shaq!” What was even more funny is that those whispers were from GUYS! Clearly they were sports fans but it was hilarious to see the guys go gaga.

Shaq boarded the plane while we sat another 30 minutes before boarding. Now I knew he would be in first class of course but it never dawned on me that *I* could be the one sitting next to him. NEVER. But then I walked onto the plane and who do I see next to my 5E seat???? Yep, Shaquille ONeal. How.freakin’.cool.

I just smiled, then he smiled. I said, “Soooooo, I know you have over a million followers but you should totally follow me on twitter ’cause I’m kind of a big deal.” Yep, those are MommySnacks words but I couldn’t resist! He said, “What’s your twitter name?” I told him and that’s when he twittered,

Now he was telling me he was twittering this so of course, I touched him. Then he twittered this,

Yes, it was sorta setup but who cares! I won a prize and Shaq twittered me! lol  Not only did I gain a ton of followers after that, I got a lot of tweets asking what the prize was.  Well, there really wasn’t a prize to be quite honest with you. I told him, “People are asking me what the prize is so I’m just gonna tell them it’s me getting a seat by you on the plane.”  He said okay and we started talking about family.  I showed him my bag with my boys and man on it and he asked who that was riding that horse.  I told him who it was and what he was doing.  He was amazed…so amazed in fact he didn’t believe me and asked the people around us if they’ve heard of wild horses and such. It was hilarious. Then he tweeted this…

It was really funny because it was time to turn off our cell phones and he kept hiding his.  He kept tweeting and did not want to put it away.  So the flight has started and we are comfortable.  I got my feet up, crossed in my seat and he took his cap and shades off.  We started talking more about guns, ranches, him being a U.S. Marshall, his 6 kids who range from 13 down to 2, his wife of 5 years who says, “37/12″. His real age and how he acts.  lol  It was great conversation and we laughed a bunch.  He even had this little gadget that when we both placed our thumbprints on it at the same time, it told him exactly who I was and my complete address!!! Can you believe that!

After a long conversation, Shaq slept for a bout 15-20 minutes or so.  Then is was supper time!  He ordered the Chicken Parmesan and I got the Tortellini.  He asked if my Tortellini was good and I said very good….so I asked if he wanted to try it.  So he did, then he took more  and put it on his plate! He also burned his mouth after he just saw me blowing mine off to cool it.  He ordered Diet Coke.  I said, “Diet??”  He said, “Yeah, I gotta maintain this body.”

He asked me to take a picture of him and tweet it. He said to tell everyone that he was snoring so loud.  Yes, that’s the 12yr old coming out! lol

One thing I noticed is how other people who were trying to talk to him sounded so fake.  It made cringe really to see how stupid someone can sound when talking to a celeb.  I honestly think Shaq saw how genuine I was, which is why about 30 minutes before the flight was to end, he looked at me and said, “I want you to have these.”.  I said, “Oh gosh no, I can’t take your sunglasses.  Those are Prada and cost a lot of money, but thank you very much.  It’s been a treat just getting to chat with you.”  He just smiled and said, “No really, I want you to have them..please.”  So I said okay.

By the way, he said don’t smile…”It’s cooler not to smile.” LOL

For the rest of the duration of the flight, he played with my iphone. He has a Blackberry and said the iphones are too big.  He really liked the Lightning Tap game I had on it and wanted to “battle”.  So we battled. I got .38 seconds, he got .36 seconds and started singing “we are the champions”.  Then I got .23 seconds and then guess what he got???  .02 seconds. Are you kidding me???  I told him he’s a cheater!!!  I said you can’t cheat! He started singing, “I am the champion, you are the loser” using Queen’s song of course.  It was really funny actually.  He finally gave me my iphone back and said that he might just have to get one for the apps.  By this time, we were landing and he told me to tweet that fake snoring picture of him, so I did.

It was the most awesome thing that could have happened after a crappy 3hr delay of sitting at the airport.  He was the nicest person ever!  Too bad the only camera I had was my iphone:(  Oh well, it was still all awesome!

We shook hands and swapped some info and said goodbye.