How did THIS happen?!  Do I actually have extra teeth in this photo?

Well, since my husband is all kinds of cool, he got us passes for a screening… and then before I knew it, Conan was resting his big red head against my little blonde one and I was trying to keep my eyes from popping out of my face!  AHH!  It’s OK, you can be excited with me!

We arrived on the Warner Brothers lot and were super nerds about that.

Then we watched the for-your-Emmy-consideration-episode of Conan In Cuba.

THEN Conan came out on stage and had a Q&A panel.

During the Q&A, I sat there thinking “Oh my heck, I have been watching this guy on TV for like TWENTY YEARS.” I did the math in my head thinking it couldn’t be right!  But yes, I watched him all the way back in high school.  I giggled at him with my college roomies.  And I vividly remember falling asleep to his show in my first apartment where I lived alone.  I still record the show now and watch it while I’m ironing.  I sadly never saw a taping in New York, but I went to a taping when he hosted The Tonight Show.  And I’ve seen a taping of Conan here and there. I had a crush on him (as all cool girls my age did) and I loved his on-again off-again beard.  I actively boycotted Jay Leno after the Tonight Show controversy because #imwithcoco all the way.  Whenever I see a construction sign that says “Slow Down for the Cone Zone” – I actually think of Conan.  When he visited my homeland Finland, I was filled with glee. The love runs deep, man.  And yes, I know this paragraph is going on too long, I am exposing a side you do not need to know about.

So as they started wrapping things up on stage, I got my phone ready, just thinking I’d snap a pic of him walking out.  But he came down into the crowd instead!  We were pretty close to the front as it was, so I gave Paul the puppy eyes like “pleeeease?! He’s. right. there.”  He sighed and nodded so I squeezed my way through all the shmoozers and waited patiently as people told Conan their life stories and gave their acting creds and asked him stupid, stupid questions.  First chance I got, I jumped in, snapped the pic, and was out of there before I could even blubber out a “hello”.

So 20 years I’ve spent on this guy and my meeting with him lasted 3 seconds.

You know what?  That’s ok.  I would’ve goofed it up anyway.  Smiling the rest of the day!