The nicest guy in Hollywood

Tom Hanks was on NPR’s Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me this weekend, and it reminded me of The Husband’s and my trip to Los Angeles last October. We went to a friend’s wedding in Long Beach and spent the next day at with two of my college housemates, N. and B., and N.’s husband P, who live in L.A. Since we only had one day in L.A., I wanted to take a cheesy bus tour to make sure we saw the requisite sights.

While on the bus tour, B. of all people filled us in on some Hollywood gossip. I say “of all people,” because B. is just about the last person you would ever expect to know or care about Hollywood gossip, but I guess the gossip just invades your life when you live there, so you can’t help but be aware of it. She mentioned that from everything she’s heard, Tom Hanks is just as nice in real life as he appears to be in films and interviews.

“You know, my father is going to meet Tom Hanks,” The Husband said, casually.

“What?” I exclaimed.

“Oh, didn’t I tell you?” said The Husband. The Husband is quite notorious for forgetting to tell me trivial little details such as “My mother’s birthday is on Saturday*,” or “We are going to my cousin’s house this weekend,” or “My dad is close friends with Tom Hanks.” See, Father-in-law runs a NASA-associated educational center, and they were going to premier a new educational movie or something that Tom Hanks helped produce. Or something. I wasn’t too sure about the details because I was still reeling from the news that I am only 2 degrees from Tom Hanks (and therefore 3 degrees from Kevin Bacon).

So then The Husband added, “Actually, I think he said we could go to the premiere if you want. Do you want to meet Tom Hanks?”

Was he kidding me? Did I want to meet Tom Hanks? “Yes! Yes I want to meet Tom Hanks!” I shouted. “When is it? Can we really go?”

The Husband tried to remember. “Oh… wait, I think we may have missed it already.” Which, as it turned out, we had.

When I am 80, I’ll probably still be telling our grandchildren, “You know, your grandfather and I could have met Tom Hanks, but he blew it.”

*Before you suggest it, I have since acquired a list of all relevant birthdays from Mother-in-law and input them into my Palm Pilot.