[Editor’s Note: Laurie C., a long-time RMNB reader, randomly ran into a Caps player today. I’ll let her explain.]

Today, my addiction to Wawa paid off. I stopped into the Joppa, MD store to grab a sub. While I was browsing the candy bars, I noticed this familiar individual. I only got a side glance but then I realized “Holy crap, that’s John Carlson….I think!” Immediately I looked around for Alzner, but he was nowhere to be found.

So I walked up to him, like a total goon ball and asked, “Are you who I think you are?”

He laughed at me and said, “Yeah, probably.”

I asked him how he was doing, and why he was all the way up my way. He told me that he was either on his way up or back (I can’t remember , ooops) from visiting his family in New Jersey. So then I said, “You know what my next question, is right?” (Can I have a picture with you?) and he laughed again and said, “Absolutely”.

Of course I realized at that moment that I looked like crap because I had just come from work, I made a comment about it and he said “Well I’m not exactly in my best attire either.”

His fiancée volunteered to take the picture — she was super nice too! I asked him if he was following the playoffs at all, and he said he wasn’t ‘that’ interested, he just wanted to see who would win. I made him laugh when I asked, “Anyone but the Penguins right?”

I thanked him again for the picture, then tried to remember where I was. Needless to say, the candy bar I was trying to decide on was not even a thought anymore. Neither was my sub that I almost forgot to pick up. I think a lot of people are “used” to seeing players because they live so close to DC, or go to Kettler a lot and so on. This isn’t something that happens up here AT ALL, so I might be in shock or on cloud 9 for the remainder of the afternoon!