Spotted on the Selling Floor: Anthony Warlow

All too often I see my heroes on the shop floor…and proceed to either embarrass myself or hyperventilate.

For someone who spent four years at uni studying to essentially talk to people, this could be viewed as a bit of an issue.

It is refreshing, and makes me feel like less of a failure, to see that other people get nervous when their heroes grace the shop floor.

Yesterday I was folding away at my table; no doubt stewing on something annoying a customer had done, when one of my colleagues approached.

“I just saw Anthony Warlow.”

“Cool,” I responded…probably too nonchalantly.

“He is one of my heroes…he is the reason I studied music.”

Yep, ‘cool’ was definitely too nonchalant.

“Well you have to go talk to him…”

As the words fell out of my mouth, I immediately knew how hypocritical I was being. When have I ever been able to ‘just go talk to him’?

Kerry O’Brien? No, that was when I hyperventilated in the back room.

Maxine McKew? No…that was when I mumbled out some incoherent sentence (and I use that term loosely) and scared her away.

Yeah…just go talk to him…such meaningful advice coming from me.

Upon coming to this realisation I decided I had to use my own failings to inspire my friend to go talk to his hero.

“You have to go talk to him. How many times have I failed to get out words when my heroes come in? You’ll regret it, like I do every time I don’t talk to someone, if you don’t go and at least try.”

Hot damn, I thought to myself, remember that speech if you ever go on to write a teen movie…it will work out well in the third act drama.

Mo…ti…va…tion…al.

After my ‘go get your girl’ speech, my friend was off and I knew that no matter what, he would get his girl…Anthony Warlow.

After waiting half an hour for his return I decided I was bored, and as such, I should go grab a coffee and hope to return to a story to go with my beverage.

Oh what a story I returned to.

They had discussed Anthony’s past, how he got started, how he felt taking on some major role that I pretended to know about; he gave my friend advice…and then gave him his autograph.

All in all, I learnt that I give good advice. The issue is I need to learn to practice what I preach.

Maybe next time?