Meeting My "Idol"

Okay, so I have to say that David Archuleta isn't really my "idol," but I just thought it was a clever title.  Anyway, somehow every time David has a concert that is actually close enough for me to go to, I never hear about it until it happens/is sold out.  This has probably happened at least 3 times.  In December (2010) though, he was doing the Christmas concert in Salt Lake City with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.  I wanted to go so bad, but they give out tickets by random drawing.  So I had everybody I know and their dog sign up for tickets... and guess what?  Nobody got tickets.  My dreams were crushed once again.

One day, however, I was perusing the news on the Salt Lake Tribune website, and I stumbled across an article that said David Archuleta was doing a CD signing after the Friday night MoTab concert (Dec. 17) at the Deseret Book in SLC.  It was really purely chance that I read that article; I'm pretty sure the title of the article didn't say anything about David.  I knew I HAD to go.  So naturally I try to talk Kelley into going with me, and let me just say, she's such a good friend.  She was basically like, "Tara, there's no way I could not help you go."  And it actually turned out that Kelley's family was going to be in Salt Lake that night, and I was going to be leaving from the Salt Lake airport on Saturday morning.  So her wonderful parents offered to let us stay at the hotel with them Friday night after we had gone to the CD signing.  It seemed like everything would work out perfectly.

Friday finally arrived, and after Kelley got home from work, we headed out to Salt Lake City.  I was beyond excited.  So we're driving for a while and Kelley's like, "I don't really remember what exit to take for Salt Lake."  We decide to call her parents, and her mom tells us to take 6th South.  For some reason, we thought that meant 6000 South, which we had already passed or something.  We take the next exit we can, and end up completely lost somehow.  So we call Kelley's family again, and I talk to them so Kelley can drive.  Her brother-in-law gets on the phone to try and help us get un-lost.  He was like, "Take 215 East."  To make sure I didn't get us more lost, I asked several times, "215 East right?  215 East?"  He assured me it was 215 East.  Kelley gets on 215 East.  I'm still on the phone and he's like, "Wait... I meant 215 West."  So after much more craziness, we miraculously find our way to Salt Lake.  I'm pretty sure me and Kelley are the only ones who could get lost going from Provo to Salt Lake.

By this time, we're about a half hour later than we wanted to be, but we found a parking spot relatively close to Deseret Book and ran down to the store.  The line was already out the front door onto the sidewalk.  And it was not very warm outside at all.  Some people got behind us in line who had left the concert a little early so they could get into the CD signing, and we could hear them talking about how they had had extra tickets to the concert and couldn't find anyone to give them too.  Seriously?!  The 10 people that signed up for me couldn't get tickets, and there are people who ended up with extra?!?!  Lame.  And then there was this girl behind me who was frantically putting on make-up... like David is actually going to care, for the 3 seconds that he sees you, whether you're wearing make-up or not.  At least there was a space heater kinda thing on the sidewalk to help keep us warm, but after standing next to it for about 2 minutes, Kelley and I had to keep checking to make sure our hair hadn't caught fire.

After what seemed like hours, the line started to move.  It went all around the whole store, in and out of bookshelves, and had no view of David Archuleta.  Really, you couldn't see him till you got to him.  Of course, I wanted to get a picture of me meeting him, but they this one little roped off area where you could stand to take pictures, so Kelley had to get out of line to take a picture for me and then get back in line to get a CD signed (for someone else).  It was a dumb system, especially because the picture area was right in front of where David was, so someone was usually blocking the view.  After trying to figure all that out, it was my turn to go meet him.  My heart was pounding with excitement.  I walked up to David Archuleta and handed him my CD booklet to sign, and this is what went down:

Me: "Hi!"
David: "Hi!"
(David signs my booklet and hands it back to me)
Me: "Thank you!"
David: "You're welcome."

It literally took all of three seconds, but it was the happiest three seconds ever.  And can I just say, he's even cuter in person.  I turned around to see if Kelley got a picture, and she was freaking out because she wasn't sure if she got one.  But she had to throw me the camera and get back in line.  Now I'm standing there waiting to take a picture along with all the other crazy people, and the security people were so pushy.  This one lady was like, "You can only take one picture.  Get out of the picture place."  And I was like, "But my friend hasn't even gotten up there yet!"  And she was like, "I understand, but you have to move."  She understands?  I'm pretty sure she didn't listen to anything I just said.  So I stayed in the picture place anyway (getting shoved and jostled by all the people who actually had probably gotten a picture already) and got a picture of Kelley and David.  Take that, rude security lady.

Thanks to Kelley, I got my CD signed, I got to see and talk to David Archuleta, and I did get a picture with him!  If you look, you can even see that he's talking to me in the picture.

I'm a little OCD, so it will forever bother me that my hood is turned inside out in this picture.  But it's still my favorite picture ever.


My next goal:  To actually go to one of his concerts and hear him SING in person!