The Best Time I Didn’t Sit Next to Harrison Ford

by Kelly Pippin

I went to college in Malibu, and one of the greatest (weirdest?) things about it was seeing celebrities in the most banal circumstances: Tom Hanks in line in front of you for frozen yogurt, Martin Sheen coming out of the pharmacy as you’re heading in, Britney at the Starbucks.

I never knew quite what to do when this happened. Of course, I always wanted to stare, but also really wanted to be above that — you know, resist all the Hollywood hype and celebrity worship that surrounds these people. So I’d usually go out of my way to act cool and avoid eye contact, which is kind of ridiculous, because, who am I kidding? I totally read Us magazine every week.

The fight between these two opposing impulses (must avoid celebrity worship/must give in to their all-consuming life force) finally came to a climax for me one night during my junior year when I saw Harrison Ford.

First, I need to back up and emphasize how much I have always been madly in love with Harrison Ford. In junior high, when Titanic came out, and all the girls were obsessing over Leonardo DiCaprio, I had pictures of a 56 year-old Harrison Ford up in my locker. Star Wars had been re-released the same year as Titanic, and I think that jump-started my obsession. Han Solo! The lopsided grin. That V-neck shirt! That amazingly hot kiss with Leia where he tells her she likes scoundrels. DON’T WE ALL?

I spent my high school years inhaling the entire Harrison Ford canon, from his early bit part in American Graffiti to some of his older stinkers like Random Hearts. I even watched Regarding Henry. Everyone knew I loved Harrison Ford. It was sort of “my thing” in those formative years when the pop-culture stuff you love is really important. And, no joke, I honestly knew that one day our paths would cross. I felt it.

And then they actually did. Here’s the story: My junior year of college, a handful of friends and I decide to go see a faculty member’s son in the play Peter Pan. As it turns out, Harrison Ford’s daughter was playing Tinker Bell.

Unaware of this amazing fact, I am the first of my friends to buy a ticket and I head in before everyone to save seats. The theater is pretty empty, so I grab five seats in the third row and lay my jacket across them. Then I sit down to await my fate.

In my memory, what happens next happens in slow motion, with the sound of a heartbeat thumping loudly in the background:

1) I casually look over my shoulder.
2) I see Harrison Ford enter the theater.
3) I freeze. And then awkwardly look down at my hands.
4) I look back again at him because it’s Harrison Ford!!
5) I realize he is walking toward me.
6) I REALIZE HE IS APPROACHING ME.
7) Harrison Ford speaks to me.

Yes, he speaks to me. His consciousness and my consciousness actually interact.

“Excuse me,” he says politely, “are these seats taken?” and he points to the seats right next to me — the ones with my jacket strewn across them.

I’m fuzzy-brained and also a little confused — isn’t the “jacket strewn across” a universal sign for “taken”? What am I supposed to do here? A moral quandary presents itself: Do I remove the jacket and say, “No, Harrison, please sit down next to me,” then tell my friends, tough luck, go find other seats? Surely, Harrison realizes he’s asking me to make this choice. Is he worth it?

Then I think (and this is all in the space of five seconds), wait a minute; I’m saving these seats! Harrison Ford is just a person, just like I am a person and my friends are people, also!

He is waiting, and I have to answer, so I open my mouth to say whatever comes out easiest, which ends up being:

“Yeah, I’m sorry. I’m saving these for some friends who are in line.”

Harrison just looks at me. I’m not sure he’s used to being told things like this. Then he does something excruciating! He gives me a second chance. There’s one seat to my left that I have my arm around, saving it also. (How annoying am I with all this seat saving?)

“What about here? Is this also taken?” he asks. The one RIGHT NEXT TO ME. Our arms would be touching the entire play. In the dark.

But, I mean, at this point, I’ve committed to the treating-him-like-a real-person thing. So, I can’t really capitulate now.

“Um, yeah, this one too.”

“OK.” He sighs, disappointed in me, and heads to the other side of the theater, while I’m left wondering what just happened to my brain.

I wish I could say that this story made me a folk hero among my friends. It didn’t at all. They thought I was ridiculous for not giving them up. And as much as I kind of want to believe it makes me a badass — nope, not really, it doesn’t. It just makes me a girl who tried to save too many seats and got what was coming to her: a night watching a youth production of Peter Pan next to people I actually know.

Kelly Pippin used to teach English to middle schoolers, but now she’s off getting a doctorate. She never saw Harrison Ford again.