Schmaubrey Shplaza

When you live in Los Angeles, you inevitably run into celebrities fairly often, but most of the time there's nothing worth saying about the encounters other than, "Saw 'em!", which makes for boring stories to most people aside from your East Coast relatives who find this sort of thing fascinating. So while I normally don't namedrop on this blog, I do have a slightly better than nothing tale to tell about a certain famously moody Parks and Recreation actress who we can call, oh, Shmaubrey Shplaza, for the sake of protecting her identity.

Two friends and I were eating at a Vietnamese restaurant when Shmaubrey Shplaza came in with two friends of her own and was seated at a table across from us. We did a quick, whispered, "That's Shmaubrey Shplaza," and then went on with our own lives and conversations. If anything, we were more focused on the waiter, who my friend decided she had a crush on. I started to glance at strange books sitting on a shelf next to us, one of which had a cover my friend thought was funny enough to take a picture of.

For the record, she took a picture of the book. But given the angle the picture was taken at, Shmaubrey Shplaza apparently thought we were snapping a photo of her eating in the background and got irritated.

Look, I don't blame her for thinking we were taking a picture of her because I bet people do that kind of thing to her all the time. But we really didn't! And it's one of those things where you almost want to get up and show Shmaubrey Shplaza the picture and prove that she isn't even in the background so she has nothing to roll her eyes at, but that's just going to make you look crazier.

It's also possible that Shmaubrey Shplaza didn't care about the photo at all, but was just sort of scowling and staring intently because that's what she does naturally. Like, Shmaubrey Shplaza was pretty "in character" throughout dinner, even as her friends seemed pretty pleasant.

Whatever. I pride myself on not being that guy who tries to coyly take pictures of celebrities, but now a celebrity seems to think we're that kind of people anyway. Sometimes you just can't win!