My So-Called Fangirl Life

Jingle Bash 2015/Donnie Wahlberg

12/12/15 Chicago, IL

(Donnie had nothing to do with this trip, but he was a little surprise that happened, so that's what this is kind of about.)

This trip was a little different in that I took my daughter with me. I don't usually take her when traveling, because I never know what I'm going to get into with Traci. Not that we get wild and crazy, but dragging a kid around with us probably wouldn't be the most responsible thing to do. Plus, it's more expensive. However, Molly's 10th birthday was on the 13th, the day after the show, and I knew I wouldn't be home until that evening. And she loves 5 Seconds Of Summer (The Main reason we were going to Jingle Bash), so I would have felt like a terrible mother if I didn't let her go. I told her to consider it her birthday present. She was cool with it.

Our first stop after meeting Traci in Nashville, as usual, was the Rainforest Cafe. I'd never been there before, but it was fun, and the food was delicious. After finishing our meal, the waiter brought us the check. He said he assumed we didn't want dessert. Um, obviously he didn't know us. We wanted that huge volcano cake and ice cream thingy. One thing about us, we probably eat more than any other girls I know. The three of us devoured that treat and were left feeling miserable. But the waiter was impressed.

We had nothing else to do, so we decided to look around the mall for a while. Our first stop was Claire's. What did we do? We walked directly to the 5SOS section. Then the sales lady made the mistake of telling us the entire store was buy three, get three free. "I'll take one of those, and one of those, and ooh, I like this too...." In the end, five of the six items we got were 5SOS related. Socks, a stationary set, two keychains, and a notebook. The cashier asked me if any of them were gifts. I was like, "Um... yeah. Sure. That's it." Haha! How old are we again?

Next, we both wanted one of the new State Champs shirts from Hot Topic. But they didn't have them yet. That was a bummer. But then we got all excited about their upcoming show we'd just bought VIP tickets for. Seriously, we've never had so much fun at a concert as we had at their show. We couldn't wait to do it again.

We had to get up at 3:15 a.m. for our flight the next morning (3:15 a.m. Why do we do that to ourselves???) so we tried to go to bed about 9:30. Neither of us slept much at all. It was so hot (70 degrees in December? Crazy.) and I guess we were just excited. I slept from 10:30 to 11:30 and that was about it. I laid there listening to Molly snooze the rest of the night.

I've never seen a 10 year old so eager to wake up at such an ungodly hour before. But I didn't have to tell Molly twice. It was her first plane ride, so she was excited about that, too.

I'm still not sure what was going on at the airport that morning. I just know that we walked through the terminal behind Elsa. Yes, Princess Elsa from Frozen. We got breakfast and sat down, and you could hear music, and apparently Elsa was jamming with Frosty the Snowman and I don't know who else around the corner from us. They had one heck of a party going on at 5 in the morning. There were a bunch of small kids and everything.

Molly did fine on the plane. She thought it was pretty cool going through the clouds and watching the sun rise. I hadn't told her that we planned on waiting around at the airport to see if we could meet 5SOS. I actually didn't tell her until we'd been waiting for several hours, because I didn't want to get her hopes up in case it didn't happen.

We couldn't find any information on the flight that 5SOS were taking. And no one had seen them at the airport in NY. But they also hadn't been seen leaving by bus. So all we could do was watch the incoming flights from NY and wait. And we waited for several hours. Ridiculous. But we had nothing else to do, so why not? The last flight we decided to wait on landed about 2:30 or so. We figured that one had to be it, because the next one would be too late for them to get ready for the show in time. So we waited across from the gate, and I sat on my suitcase. There was a group of three girls that stood near us, obviously waiting for 5SOS as well. And there was another group, two guys and one girl, who we'd seen all over the airport, also obviously waiting on 5SOS. If the guys were indeed on that plane, it was a small crowd, and it would be perfect.

I don't know how it happened, but my suitcase rolled out from under me and I landed on my butt. Only me, I swear. While I was trying to catch my breath from laughing, I decided to just sit on the floor instead. I was humiliated, but it was hilarious. I love the way Traci didn't even ask if I was okay, she just started laughng. She's come to expect my clumsiness.

We had barely recovered from laughing when people started coming through the gate. I saw a tall man bend over. I barely got a glimpse of his face, but he looked so familiar. When he stood back up I realized who he looked like. I told Traci, "That looks like Johnny." She asked, "Johnny who?" And as I was replying, "Donnie's Johnny," she said, "That's Donnie!" (FYI Johnny is Donnie Wahlberg's friend/assistant, for any non-blockheads who don't know.)

We walked up to him and OF COURSE I start off with something stupid. "Hey, Donnie! It's nice to meet you. Well, actually, I've met you a few times, but it's good to see you again." I swear, it'll be a miracle if I ever don't say something dumb. He held out his hand and I shook it. And I'm laughing about that, because I've hugged the guy more times than I've hugged my own friends, but we shook hands.

I think Traci was saying something about how we recognized Johnny first. Then Johnny was like, "I'm actually Tommy, Johnny's cousin. And he's not Donnie, he's Ronnie." Even Donnie didn't seem to find his attempt at a joke very funny. You just have to know Johnny.

But then Donnie asked what we were doing there. I swear the way he asked sounded like he recognized us, but I'm 99% sure I'm making that up. We told him we were there for Jingle Bash and he asked, "What's that?" We told him it was a concert, and he asked where it was. I said, "Allstate Arena."

He asked when we got in, and Traci and I looked at each other. I can't lie for anything, so I was glad when Traci answered, "Just a little bit ago." Though, if he knew the truth, I'm pretty sure he'd understand. He's pretty much seen it all.

Traci kept talking to him, telling him that we had to miss the cruise this year, and asked if there'd be a cruise next year. He confirmed that there would be, and said that we better not miss it.

Meanwhile, Johnny was feeling my hair and said, "You're a little ginger."

I said, "Yeah, I just did this a couple days ago. I was scared to death." I don't know if he said anything else, because I looked over at my daughter, and she looked a little lost. I whispered to her, "Do you know who this is?" She gave me a little embarrassed look and shook her head. I told her, "It's Donnie Wahlberg."

She whispered back, "I thought so, but I wasn't sure." To be fair, he was wearing sunglasses.

Traci asked for a picture. I've never known of him to turn one down, unless he's with his family. So they took some selfies, then he asked Molly and I if we wanted one. Of course I wasn't going to say no. And for once, they turned out to be decent pictures.

He held up his hand for a soft high five, and we told him bye. He walked to the restroom while we went back to where we'd been waiting before, and we proceeded to freak out. I'm sure those the girls we were standing by had no idea who Donnie was, and thought we were insane. But then one of the guys waiting on 5SOS walked over and asked, "Who was that?" We told him, and he looked shocked. Traci told him Donnie went into the restroom, and he and his friends went that way, and got pictures when he came out.

I thought, "Seriously? You had to ask who that was, but you asked him for a picture? Okay."

Then the same guy came back and asked us if we were waiting on "Five ess oh ess" also. I'm not even kidding you. You're stalking them in an airport, but can't even pronounce their name correctly? (It's  pronounced "five sauce" FYI.)

When it was clear that 5SOS weren't on that flight, either (turns out they did ride the bus from NY), we decided to call it quits and call our friend, Morgan, to pick us up. She was going to the show with us, too. She was excited that we'd met Donnie, because she's also a big fan. While we were waiting, we posted our pictures on Twitter and Facebook. And Donnie replied to Traci's with, "Who knew?" She didn't even tag him, so that was crazy. Running into him made all that waiting around worthwhile. It was the best random encounter ever. Plus, we did "run into" 5SOS later and Molly and I talked to Luke. It was one of my favorite trips to date.