Me and my fellow Joinee friend Tabitha got there (Waterstones bookshop in York, where the Leader - one Mr Danny Wallace - was doing a book reading) about 20 mins early. Doors were locked. No sign of anyone. Just as I was wondering if when I yelled his name up at the windows above he'd hear me, we both spotted a guy in jeans and black shirt wandering up the street towards us... a bespectacled, normal, slightly scruffy man.......
"Isn't that....??" gasped Tab.
"It CAN'T be!!!!" I too gasped
"IT IS!!!!" we exclaimed, as we realised that YES, this was our beloved Leader ambling towards us!!!!
Kitted out in our own cult t-shirts, we walked up to him and I greeted him with a grin and a "Hi, Leader!" He was SOOOOOO lovely!! Shook both our hands, looked at our tickets for the night and commented on how we had ticket numbers 2 and 3 ("Looks like it could just be the three of us then!" he said. "I wouldn't mind that!" I replied... before realising I'd said and being like " umm... I didn't say that!...." lol
Oh, and when we introduced ourselves, he recognised my name from the forum - awwwwww, yay!!! And he loved the t-shirts and commented "Oh God!!" at our fake Join Me tattoos! But ohhh... he was SO cool! And a bit worried about how he couldn't get into the bookshop! But then the lady inside rang his mobile so he got in.
Then me and Tab were the first inside (actually lots of people turned up in the end!) and we chose front row seats, as close to him as we could get Then we just sat there and giggled pretty much non-stop ("WE MET HIM!!!" "HE KNEW ME FROM THE FORUM!!" "HE SHOOK MY HAND!!!" "HE LOVES THE T-SHIRTS!!" etc) until he came out to do the reading.
He did a LOT of lovely, funny rambling.. and read the first chapter of his book, then rambled more. He's just soooo naturally funny, just everything he says makes you laugh (ok, so I was giggling a lot anyway but still!)
He mentioned mass suicides about 3 times....................................
........ but only jokingly!! He had to make the choice of whether to use his Leader powers for good or for bad, and (quite boringly one might say) he chose to use them for good.
Then after he stopped rambling we got him to sign our books... and he wrote "Good t-shirt action!" in Tab's (i'm so proud, coz it's my design) and "Lovely to meet you!" in mine. And he knew how to spell my name (Massara... not Lou) and all. yay And lol when we got to the front of the queue was like "ahh.. you two again!!" Teeheehee...
And then one of the first 100 Joinees was there (there's now about 8000 worldwide) - "Big" (and rather lovely!!) Dan.. he was soo cool! He arranged to go out for a pint with Danny afterwards and was inviting the rest of us along. I had to come straight home though coz I've got an exam tomorrow (LOL he asked what the exam was and I was like "I can't remember!!" Ahh... too.. much... excitement.... can't... think....) But yeh, we're gonna keep in touch and get together with some other York Joinees some time over the summer (hopefully). he was cool.. and like a celebrity coz he's in the book!!
