Can I tell you this story? I absolutely love this story. It was quite possibly the highlight of my 13-year-old life.
Scratch that. So many magical things happened when I was 13: got my first boyfriend, first kiss, first pair of jeans from Abercrombie (obviously a huge milestone); rode on a float in the Yankees' Ticker Tape parade after winning the World Series, went on stage and was seranaded by *NSYNC with my best friend. Ah, life at 13. Take. me. back!
Not to brag or anything but yeah, that was pretty awesome, right Kirb? I love talking to myself.
For those of you without eyes (apparently) for the past 15 years, that's Matthew McConaughey on the right with my little babis of a brother.
He was at the Dell Diamond in Round Rock, Texas last night with mi familia to support my cousin Koby.
Anyway, when I was 13, the Yankees were in the playoffs with the Texas Rangers before advancing on to play the Atlanta Braves in the World Series (only to sweep them). After advancing, there was a big party at the ballpark in Arlington. Obviously I was nowhere near being old enough to get in to this boozefest, but somehow me and my five under-legal-drinking-age-by-almost-a-decade cousins were admitted in this party. Granted, we weren't interested in drinking, but I'm positive I shouldn't have been there.
My uncle is good friends with Matthew (University of Texas, y'all) and decided to introduce me.
"Kirb, have you seen Ed TV?" Uh, no. By the way, my favorite thing about this is that he acts like maybe I should have seen it, when it was clearly a movie my parents would not let me see at 13. I mean, it was a struggle getting Mom to let me and Jen watch Clueless in 4th grade. I digress.
Matthew sticks out his hand, shakes, and then I'm whisked over to meet Daryl Strawberry (what a doozy).
Anyhow, Matthew was extremely nice, a total southern gentleman. I did recall who he was because his mom lives in my hometown and earlier that year, at a middle school dance, (that, ironically, I didn't get asked to dance at) she raffled off his old school desk. The girl that won got to choose either the desk or $100 cash -- she opted for the cash.
I don't remember what happened between then and this next part of the story, but it doesn't matter. The point is that my first dance, in life, was Matthew McConaughey. Everything happens for a reason, ladies!
Everyone is standing around just staring at the dance floor at the point. I cannot recall for the life of me what song was playing, but all of a sudden Matthew jumps out on the floor and starts doing the twist. Or at least a version of it. I just distinctly remember his arm movements and legs twisting around. And then, out of nowhere, he's like, "Come dance!" and grabs my hands and we did the whole "hold hands and dance" thing for a solid five minutes. My Aunt Bonnie jumped in a few minutes later (I'm sure we was on cloud nine) as more guests got on the floor to cut a rug.
This story obviously didn't mean much at all at the time. I didn't really tell anyone until I saw one of People's "Sexiest Man Alive" and I was like, hey now... I danced with that guy.
There is no way in God's green earth that Matthew would ever remember that, but what a friggen awesome story to tell my children.