What I Learned From Spying on Minnie Driver

On my grand business trip to England, one of my coworkers upgraded us to business class and it was one of the greatest things ever! We were in the admiral's club before our 12 hour flight boarded and I tried to sneak some pictures of the swankiness. Only then did I realize that although I had remembered to charge the battery in my camera, I had forgotten my memory card. D'oh!

Luckily for me, airports now have these crazy kiosk/vending machines that sell electronics and accessories and I had found access to a new memory card. I stood there, waiting for the repairman to finish working on the only one in the concourse and I turned around to see how many people were also waiting and BAM!

Minnie Driver is standing right behind me.

Although she hasn't been in many movies lately, she was in my favorite cult-classic romantic comedy "Return To Me" with David Duchovny centered around a heart transplant (If you haven't seen it, you should. It's not terrible and it's got a great cast.)

Anyway, she was playing with her son at the terminal and I figured it made sense for them to be on a red-eye flight from LA to London since she's British. Assuming this would be the last I would see of her, because she would probably be in first class, imagine my surprise to see them sitting across the aisle and two rows up in business. I was able to sneak this picture of the back of her head.

I SWEAR that's her!

Maybe it's because I'm from Tucson and I consider seeing one of the local news anchors at my hair salon a celebrity sighting, but I feel like I learned somethings from stealing glances at Minnie Driver for 12 hours:

• You couldn't tell how expensive her clothes were. So many magazines publish articles on how to get the designer look for less, but this kind of proved how mute the designer ones are in the first place. She had an amazing pair of mid-calf brown suede boots on, but from afar, they didn't look like anything that would cost more that $75 at DSW. Unless you want something covered in logos or brandnames, can you really tell if it's designer?
• Her hair wasn't done. She didn't have these perfectly styled ringlets that effortlessly bounced every time she moved her hair. It looked like normal, curly hair that would probably inflate if she tried to brush it out. I don't know if she usually has a stylist do it or didn't feel the need to do it for a flight, but I'm kind of reassured that my own messy mane is acceptable celebrity standard for a airplane ride. As hard as I try, I just can't stay looking put together when I'm traveling.
• She has to entertain her kid when she's flying with him. Her son must have been about 3, had the cutest blond ringlets, and was remarkably well-behaved. I think we were all a little nervous when we saw him running around the terminal that we would be in for a long and loud flight, but aside from pretending the airplane was a rocket ship at take-off, I don't think I heard much from him until morning. And it's nice to know that all celebrities don't rely on nannies to watch their kids. She pretended to blast-off with him, she snuggled up with him when they went to sleep (I did some more spying when I got up to go to the bathroom), and she made sure he said "please" and "thank you" to the flight attendants. Apparently not all celebrity's are bad parents and not all celebrity children are brats.

I know these revelations aren't anything grand, but it helped me realize that these celebrities I see so often on gossip blogs are just human. They aren't any better than I am because they can actually afford business class and have people who do their hair.

And they aren't any worse either.