Kirk Douglas

I met Kirk Douglas on Sunday afternoon.

This was well timed because I was having a crappy day on Sunday. So crappy, in fact, that while I was walking to the theater for the Sunday Matinee, I was wishing for just one good thing to happen.

And it did.

An old man came up to my booth -where I distribute headsets to patrons that need hearing assistance - through the walk-in hullaballoo and he looked kind of familiar. He asked me what I needed. I looked at him and the two people he was with and I told them I needed a driver's license - didn't matter whose it was. The old man's wife pulled his wallet out of her purse. While he was fumbling for his license, I started to realize the old man was Kirk Douglas.

I got excited and started fawning over him and his wife to the point where I think tears were starting to well up in my eyes. And in the face of all this adoration do you want to know what Mr. Douglas said to me?

He said "Give me one that works." This is the typical mantra of my clients over a certain age. Very often their headsets die. It just happens. The equipment gets used over and over and over again. Inevitably some of the equipment is going to fail.

I gave him one that worked.

He looks exactly the same as he does on screen. Except, he is getting on in years. And he definitely looks like someone suffering the after effects of a stroke. The only thing that surprised me was his size. He was shorter than I thought.

But then again, actors are always shorter than you think.