Whiter Than Your iPod.

From 2004.

I lovess Clay! RAH!

Here’s the Clay story you’ve all been waiting for! (Or not so much.)

Rachel calls me around 11AM this morning—I thought she was my mom leaving for Colorado—and is like, “Yo, wanna go meet Clay & Kelly backstage?” That biotch won something…AGAIN. Within the last year she’s won 1000 dollars on the radio, 100 dollar Ticketmaster gift certificate in a Twix bar, and the state of Oklahoma. Like she NEEDS to win anything else. In this case, she won tickets and passes. Two of ‘em. Ahwoo-hoo!

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Tim Silver is SO jealous commercial break.

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We Metroed to the MCI Center and got our backstage passes (they were big stickers) and tickets. Second we slapped the passes on, people were coming up to us like, “Hey, that’s a nice sticker” (translation: “Bitch, I’ma cut choo for yo pass”) and, no lie, they were all MOMs. Like diehard Clay-loving moms decked out in “Aiken for Clay!” puff-paint Fruit of the Loom cotton tees that wanted to murderize me for being able to meet Clay freaking Aiken. SCARY.

Anyway, this mother came up to us and used the “nice sticker” line and was like, “You get to meet Clay? Could you give him this gift?” And forks over this yellow giftbag stuffed with tissue paper. “My daughter [standing next to her—like, 18ish?] is leaving for the Army soon and this was the last nice thing I could do for her and we drove all the way from Virginia Beach and…”

So I agreed to take the freaking thing to make the sob story end. And she goes, “It’s a dog bone.” [Scrrrrrreeeeetch. A WHAT?] “It’s a bone for his dog. And there’s a note here that goes along with it.”

Now I’m stuck with a freaking dog bone. Oh, sure…that’ll make me look REAL sane. And WTF am I supposed to say to the kid? “Hi, Clay. Here’s a bone from some woman that tried to tackle me for my backstage pass. But she wanted to give you one. A bone. I mean…SHIT. I mean, it’s not mine. You’re really cute. Here’s the bone. I’m just gonna go now. Bye.”

While we were waiting to go backstage, I’m standing there, trying to conjure up a brilliant line to deliver this bone with. I mean, hey, it would be a good conversation piece, right? Or not so much. Whatever. YOUR MOM.

Ends up Rachel and I are first and second in line. OH, GOOD. So the other 68 people in line can watch me GIVE CLAY AIKEN A BONE.

A woman and her adult daughter, who has some form of retardation, were placed in front of us on line and we were all asked to step back so that when Kelly and Clay came out, she would have some privacy.

We were also informed by security that Clay was not going to speak when he saw us. He was on voice restriction tonight because he blew his voice out the night before at, oddly enough, Nassau Coliseum. {tear}. Great, so I’m handing a MUTE a bone now.

Clay comes out all decked out in plaid PJ pants and Kelly Clarkson…is THE SHORTEST PERSON ALIVE. I seriously thought she’d be someone comparable to my size. I’m 5’4”, but I’m still pretty short to everyone else in life. She was like a pixie. She had to be, no joke, 4’11”. I TOWERED over her. Crazy. Couldn’t get over it. Still can’t. Justin Guarini must be, like, 5’7” then or something.

The mother and her daughter are up there with Clay and, as you may or may not know, Clay has experience in working with people in situations like this and, man, he was wonderful with her. Like, any other person would have gotten freaked out and he was just so on top of the whole thing. I tried not to watch, just cause I thought it was voyerish, and he did the whole forehead-to-forehead thing with her. How adorable is HE?! Ah!

Anyway, I go up to Kelly and I shake her hand and say, “Hey, I’m Caitlin” and she introduced herself, too. And she goes, “Do you spell that with a K or a C?” “C. C-A-I-T-L-I-N. Sorry, my parents decided to be all difficult and Irish.” [Oh…they’re addressing them to us personally. Shit. Tim Silver is now Caitlin.] She thought I was funny. {tear}.

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Tim Silver is STILL SO jealous commercial break.

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Here’s the Clay Aiken moment of truth.

ME: This is going to sound REALLY random…

CLAY: [Looking at me like, “Try me…”]

ME: This equally random woman came up to me and asked me to give this to you. It’s a bone. A bone for your dog…as you do.

CLAY: [Looking me with big eyes like, “Ah, yes. A dog bone.”]

ME: Dude, I don’t know. But here it is. ANYWAY, it’s really nice to meet you. [Shit. I want to shake his hand, but he still has the Sharpie in it. Whatever…]

CLAY: [Drops the pen and shakes my hand…big smile]

Ahhhh…I lovess him. So adorable.

They lined us up into groups of 10 up against the wall to take pictures with Clay and Kelly. Ah, order. In this picture I am NOT so next to Clay, but in another one (soon to come) I AM. Rah! Some of those mothers were ABSURD. I don’t even want to talk about it, I’m that scarred for life. Ha.

P.S. Even though I spelt it out, they both spelt it with a Y. The freaking Y strikes again. Jesus. Embrace the I, ya’ll.