[deepdowntruth]

Penn Jillette. (Cliffs Notes at the end)

I was 20 years old and going to UMass-Amherst. This would make it about 1997. I loved taking road trips all around Western Mass. One day found my girlfriend and me in Richardson's Candy Shop in Deerfield, MA. I walk in, and holy [censored], there's Penn from Penn & Teller.

This was a big deal for me because I was a big magic (as in legerdemain, not 'the gathering') geek as a teenager and Penn & Teller were my absolute favorite. I had nearly every P&T TV appearance on tape, had their books, and even a copy of that godawful movie they made, Penn & Teller Get Killed. I was a huge fanboy.

So I walk in and there's Penn. He is a huge hulking mass of a man. Like 6'6 or so and just BIG. He was wearing camouflage pants, big-ass muddy boots, and what looked to be a hunting jacket. He was a presence.

Then, as now, I had no desire to approach celebrities and to come across as some retard fan, so I had no intention of going up to him and being all like, "Hello, Mr. Jillette..ZOMG I'm your biggest fan, I own everything you ever made, and please sign this...um...gum wrapper!!!!". My girlfriend though was egging me on to go talk to him, and doing so embarrassingly loudly, and I was probably more loudly telling her to shut the hell up.

So Penn buys some fudge or whatever and I overhear that his mother is out in the car waiting. He goes to pay, but somehow he is short 50 cents. He even had one of those dorky plastic squeezy pocket change purses, and his body language was like, "I don't have enough on me, what do I do, I could run out to the car, or...". I pulled out two quarters, walked up next to him, and silently put them on the counter and slunk out of the store.

Now that I live in Vegas, I anticipate running into him someday and asking him to pay me back, with interest.

<u>Cliffs Notes</u>: It was 1997. I was 20 and a Penn and Teller fanboy. I am too embarrassed to talk to Penn when I see him in a local store. He is .50 short of the amount of his purchase and I give it to him and leave without letting on that I know who he is and have a huge hard-on for him.