Sterling and Earl knew of a certain Day's of Our lives heartthrob that was coming to town to ::gasp:: sign autographs. This wasn't just any soap opera star either; it was none other than Drake Hogestyn. Drake is one of the most loved actors on daytime television and also happens to be our favorite male lead. The deal was too good to pass up and we headed down to the... Education Fair? Yeah you heard it right, an education fair of all places. We're used to these types of events so we knew that meeting Drake depended solely on line positioning.
We arrived on the scene early and secured some front row seats for his Q&A before the signing. Before we knew it they introduced Drake to the stage and the fans there couldn't have been more excited. He was a very personable guy in his Q&A and didn't shy away from any questions, except for upcoming plot points on the Days of Our Lives story line. He talked about playing baseball, acting, and even his dream film project, which was all very interesting. We left a little early to beat the crowd to the meet and greet line and prepared for the inevitable encounter.
The speech had finally ended and sure enough the rest of the crowd decided to join us in line, good thing we thought ahead. It wasn't long after until Earl was face to face with John Black himself. Drake went to shake Earl's hand and some hand shaking confusion took place. Earl didn't know this type of handshake and to make matters worse he was nervous which didn't help matters. Most celebrities would just overlook this and move on, but not Drake Hogestyn.
It was so cool because Drake took the time to show Earl this unique handshake of his. After practicing it a few times Earl finally had it down. He then looked to Sterling and wasn't about to let him off the hook just yet either and tested to see if Sterling was paying attention. During this time the autograph line was put on hold and it was so cool just to rub shoulders with this future soap opera legend.
Drake was also very funny and made sure to give us guys (we were severely outnumbered by woman) a hard time about all sorts of things. He didn't forget about signing for us and even added inscriptions on our autographs like "Earl- the real men!" and "You rule Pal". Mr. Hogestyn was also nice enough to take a few pictures with us, even going against security rules by taking a couple photos with our own camera (as opposed to the Polaroid the event was providing). We thanked him so much for everything and headed off in triumph.