April 1, 2009 was a very exciting day for me. In the middle of the afternoon, I was sitting at my desk minding my own business when suddenly I got an email from Maria Bailey inviting me to the Magical Moms Mixer at Walt Disney World. Needless to say, I about fell out of my chair from excitement.
Later that day, my husband called to tell me our friend Leah heard my name on a local radio station, and that I had won a contest and got to have lunch with Nick Lachey. I immediately called Leah to verify that she and Andy weren’t trying to play some kind of sick April Fools Day joke on me – they knew my BFF Jess and I had been entering the contest on a daily basis, and I was not about to believe them without proof. But sure enough, when I got home there was a message from a local radio personality telling me that I had in fact won the contest. Again, I about fell out of my chair from excitement. I was going to have lunch with Nick Lachey, and I could bring a friend! Awesome!!
This was the luckiest day of my life! News of an incredible trip to Disney and lunch with a super hot famous celebrity all in one day?? Amazing!
But can you guess what the difference was between those two things? I actually went to Disney. Lunch? Not so much.
A few days before the lunch was scheduled, I got another call from the radio station – this time saying that Nick had a “conflict” and the lunch would have to be postponed. Postponed. That is the key word here. Jess and I were so disappointed, but we were hopeful that they’d reschedule and we’d still get to have our lunch. So we waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Every couple of months I’d get word from the station that they were trying to work something out with Nick and his people, and we held out hope. Surely it would happen – Nick is from our area and he’s here often doing very important things like dress up like an elf on Cincinnati Bell commercials – we were confident he’d make time for us. He even sent me a lovely autographed picture to apologize for the delay.
However, yesterday, nearly a year after the big news, I got an email saying this:
Despite his numerous recent local appearances around the area for charities or sponsors, he never made it here to make up our event. Every time he came into town, we reached out to his people to work it out. Up until about two weeks ago, we were still being told to remain hopeful. Two weeks ago, we were informed that he was dropped from his record label and at that point, we knew this opportunity has passed.
I then had the unfortunate job of passing the word on to Jess. I forwarded the message with the subject “Sad news – prepare yourself.”
I feel it’s appropriate to express my disappointment to Nick, so I’m thinking of sending him this letter.
Dear Nick,
My BFF Jess and I have been loyal fans of yours for a long time. We watched “Newlyweds” religiously. Jess even has the complete set of DVDs. I’ll never forget the Thanksgiving day when I received a voicemail from her that said, “Em, I had to call you because I wanted you to hear this from me. Nick and Jessica are officially breaking up.” It was a sad day.
When we thought we were going to have lunch with you, we were thrilled. We were sure we’d totally hit it off with you and we’d be BFF – or at least Facebook friends – with you, too. Because, you know, we have a lot in common with you. You’re from Ohio. We’re from Ohio. You attended Miami University. We graduated from Miami University. (But we’ve never been members of a flash-in-the-pan boy band, though, so don’t feel bad.) It was going to be a great day!
But by putting us off for 10 months and finally telling us where to go, you ruined it, and you ruined our opinion of you while you were at it.
So, Nick, next time you’re sitting next to Pete Rose signing autographs at the Cincinnati Boat and RV show, Jess and I aren’t coming.
So there.
Love,
Emily
*******
Edited: November 21, 2012. Oh hi! If you’ve stumbled upon this post for some reason, make sure to go read THIS post for an update – as it turns out, we did have a chance to meet Nick, and he was spectacularly nice. I totally take back all the not-so-nice things I said about him in this post, but I’m leaving it up here because it’s a good back story for our eventual meeting. And, let’s face it, it’s funny.
