I am obsessed with celebrity sightings.

I didn’t see ONE celebrity during my first 2 months here in New York. I was looking for them everywhere. Charlie even pulled some tricks on me. One time, while walking down Spring Street in Soho, he had this bright idea to scream out….”BECKY! THERE’S FABIO!” And of course, the gullible person I am, I had my head bobbing everywhere trying to catch a glimpse of the long-haired blonde found on the cover of cheesy romance novels. I felt like such an idiot when he started busting out laughing. I was so pissed because I actually thought I was going to see my first celebrity.

But then I got hired to work in a handbag store on Madison Avenue, and the celebrity sightings haven’t stopped since that first day of employment.

My first celebrity sighting was actually on the way to my interview at the handbag store. I was walking between 82nd and 83rd on Madison Avenue when I saw an absolutely gorgeous woman walking with a guy. She looked familiar, but then I just thought that she might JUST be a pretty face. But when I looked up to see who she was walking with, I knew right then… it was my first celebrity sighting. Rob Thomas (the lead singer of Matchbox Twenty) and his wife were walking down Madison Avenue, shopping in antique stores.

Most of my other celebrity sightings have actually been IN the store I work for. During the Christmas/Hanukkah holiday, I was working five days a week and it seemed that the other two days of the week were when the celebrities were shopping in our store. Every time I came back to work after a day off, my co-workers would tell me the celebrity that was shopping the day before. I was starting to get rather aggravated, thinking… maybe I should start working seven days a week! Hey! Better yet - I should start sleeping in the store!

The Saturday before Christmas, people couldn’t get enough of our wonderful handbags! It was so busy, I ran downstairs to eat, and just as I sat down, my store manager beeps me from the phone upstairs and says: “GET UP HERE RIGHT NOW!”

I was hurdling boxes down in the basement - I ran up those stairs so fast, someone would have thought I was in the Olympics! I open the trap door in our store and there, I saw my first HUGE celebrity.

Sigourney Weaver.

A few days later, I met Pheobe Cates (who looks like she is seriously in her mid-twenties). I had no idea it was her until I was helping her for about 10 minutes and I realized… “HEY! This is fucking Pheobe Cates!!! The Gremlins Girl!” She was super cool. I’ve seen her a few other times since then. My New York City best friend, Stephanie didn’t recognize Pheobe either as she was helping her one day. I looked over and mouthed “THAT’S PHEOBE CATES!!!!” She had to contain herself, because even though she is FROM New York City, she still gets just as excited as I do.

In January, I had the pleasure of meeting Kathleen Turner AND Julia Ormond. Kathleen Turner was fun. I asked her if she wanted to be on our customer list and she looked at me with the look I’ve seen many times before in her movies and said “NO!” I laughed with her. Such a completely down to earth woman.

But nothing and I mean NOTHING was to prepare me for the ultimate ALMOST sighting. I was working (of course) when a customer came in and told me that Nicole Kidman was eating in the restaurant across the street. Me and Stephanie went hauling our asses over to the (expensive) restaurant. I have to admit that our sorry-selves were actually seated at a table in the restaurant (when we were supposed to be selling handbags!) just hoping to sneak a peak of the gorgeous actress. We were stalking Nicole Kidman!! We ran out of the restaurant, holding hands, laughing so hard we felt we were going to puke.

Unfortunately, we did not get to see her. But I swear I would do it again in a heartbeat!

Just recently, Charlie and I were walking around and we saw an actor from the Sopranos in a deli on the Upper East Side. Charlie actually saw him when he haphazardly looked into the small deli. He practically started jumping up and down, screaming… “That’s the guy from the Sopranos!”

I looked at him and said… “This is New York City! It’s not THAT big of a deal!”