How I Met Shaq

Some people, like Aaron Carter, meet Shaquille O'Neal on the court.



Other people might see him driving around on the road.



And then there are other people who just happen to see him at an Auntie Anne's pretzel stand in the Salt Lake City airport when they are getting ready to fly out to spend a few weeks on the East Coast.

One day, I was at the SLC airport, getting ready to do just that. I had had a bowl of cereal for breakfast, but I was worried that if I got hungry on the plane, I would accidentally eat the crepe that I got for my dad at the Awful Waffle that morning, and I didn't want that to happen. Besides, I had plenty of time before my flight took off, so I got in line at an Auntie Anne's stand on the way to my terminal.

"Can I get the original pretzel nuggets?" I asked.
"We're actually out of pretzel nuggets," the girl working there told me. "We have pretzel sticks?"
"Oh, okay, can I have some of those?"
"We're out of the original ones," she said. "We have cinnamon sugar?"

This place is a joke, I thought. "That's fine," I said. I took the little bag and moved down the line.

"Can I get some cinnamon-sugar sticks?" asked the man behind me.
"We're actually out, she just took the last ones," the girl said.

I turned around, feeling terribly guilty.

My eyes went up, and up, and up....and settled on this face:

"I'm sorry!" I said. He's going to sit on me, I thought. He's going to knock these pretzel sticks out of my hand and then he's going to sit on me. I didn't even want them. Oh, why didn't they have original pretzel nuggets like I wanted??


"That's alright," he muttered, looking at the menu again.

I thought about offering to share my pretzel sticks with him, but I was worried he would look at me like this:

So I just scooted on down the line, afraid to order anything else in case I ruined his order again. As I scooted, I thought to myself: "He looks kind of familiar. Where do I recognize him from?" 

I paid for my pretzel sticks and then went on to my terminal. And as I sat there, browsing through my magazine, it hit me: the man whose breakfast I had ruined was Shaquille O'Neal. 

And that, Aaron, is how I beat Shaq.