Then Came You

I could not let my Georgia weekend end without telling the story of my celebrity sighting.

On Friday, Marla took me to a mall in Atlanta, where we did a little Christmas shopping and had lunch (Panera's chicken salad sandwich is dairy-free, by the way). We were walking toward a store she wanted to visit, and she was in the middle of telling me a story. Suddenly, I spotted him, in a cool leather jacket, walking toward me and laughing with a group of friends.

Emmanuel Lewis.

That's right. I totally saw Webster at the mall.

I took a good long look to make sure it was him, though I would think it would be kind of difficult to spot a guy who looked like that and wasn't Emmanuel Lewis. As soon as he passed us, I couldn't help cracking a smile, and Marla stopped in the middle of her story to ask what was wrong.

"I don't know if I want to say, because I might be wrong, and then I'd feel kind of bad," I said. After all, if the guy I'd seen had been someone else, I didn't want to make the generalization that any four-foot-tall-but-fully-adult black man who was not Gary Coleman must therefore be Emmanuel Lewis. (A quick Google search today let me know that Emmanuel Lewis does, in fact, live in Atlanta, and is often spotted out and about, so now I am positive it was him.)

Eventually, I told her who I'd seen, making Marla chuckle, though I am pretty sure that more than anything, she was annoyed that I had tuned out her story. Or she was just jealous that I had spotted an eighties television icon and she hadn't.

But I wouldn't worry if I were her. I'm willing to bet he'll hit the town again soon.