Dear Internet,

THIS IS REAL, SERIOUSLY. THIS ISN’T JUST SOME DETAILED DREAM I HAD LAST NIGHT. THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENED.

On Thursday, June 16, 2011. It was the best day and moment of my entire life. Before I tell you about that beautiful hug, I’ll tell you about what led up to that moment. I’m going to go a few years back, so stay with me. As you know, I love Conan. I’m seriously in love with him. He’s the most amazing and inspiring man I will ever know of. I started watching Late Night with Conan O’Brien when I was in 6th grade. It was near the end of 2006 and I was 11 years old. It was a Friday night, late of course, and I was still awake. Just flipping through the channels. That’s when I found Late Night. I remember seeing this cute, skinny, white, tall, guy with such cool hair. I didn’t completely understand everything he was talking about in the monologue because I didn’t know much about the news. But I do remember laughing a lot. Everything he said and did made me laugh. I watched as much Late Night as I could. When Late Night ended I was sad. But I was also hopeful and excited. The Tonight Show came along and I watched it. I really did enjoy it, it was the best part of my summer in 2009. When The Tonight Show ended I was devastated. The beginning of 2010 was just hard and uncomfortable. What was going to happen now? Where’s his next show going to be? WHEN is it going to start? Fortunately, 2010 turned out to be an amazing year. I got to see Conan for the first time when the tour came to Atlanta, Georgia on June 14, 2010. It was the only opportunity I had to see him before I turned 16. LN and TTS required you to be at least 16 years old to attend a taping, so I never attended a taping. I was 15 when Conan came to Atlanta, and age didn’t matter! June 14, 2010 was the best day of my life. Until June 16, 2011. I would have never imagined on June 14, 2010, that just 1 year and 2 days later, I’d be seeing Conan again. 

16 On The 16th For Conan In California:

The week before I went to CONAN, I sent Bley a message on facebook thanking him for all he’s done and asking if we could meet and I’d give him a small present. I never got a response. But yesterday, he posted this on my wall, “Hey! I heard you were at the show the other day and I missed you! I blame my sister for the F up. I hope you had an amazing time, duder! ;)”  So at least now, he knows that I exist. I’ll talk about his sister in a second. So, I ask 1 week in advance to meet someone and nothing happens. My brother, Jeffrey, sent Rob Kutner (a CONAN monologue writer) a message THE NIGHT BEFORE THE SHOW, and got a response in less than 10 minutes. My brother asked Rob if he would sign his copy of Apocalypse How, and Rob kindly agreed and also said he would show us around! 

My parents dropped us off at Gate 8 of the Warner Brothers lot at about 7am. We waited on the second floor of this parking garage assigned to Lopez Tonight. This is where standby tickets were going to be given out. There were two people there before us who were waiting for standby tickets, so my brother and I were the first party with reserved tickets.

 Once standby tickets were distributed, we were told to wait on the 1st level. That’s where we went through security, got ID’s checked, received our party number and tickets, and eventually met Bley’s sister, Lisa.

 Lisa Bleyaert is so nice. Everyone we met was really nice. And I’m not just talking about Team Coco, EVERYONE IN CALIFORNIA. I love it. My brother and I talked to her for a while because she was part of the group of people that were distributing tickets and such. I’ll sum up the next bit to make things simple. 

• Rob Kutner put my family on a VIP list which included lot passes for us to stay in the studio after the show. (VIP seating is around the 4th row because it overlooks the cameras)
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• Lisa reserved 2 seats in the front for me and my brother, while my parents were in the 4th or 5th row. (Everyone got the seats they wanted!)
• CONAN LOOKED AT ME.

The 106th episode was called “The Title Will Be Added In Later”. The guests were Ryan Reynolds, Simon Pegg, and comedian Kyle Kinane. All of them were really funny! ALSO, Jimmy Pardo is the warm up comedian, and he’s HILARIOUS. My brother dressed up (pictures below) and it caught Jimmy’s attention. He started talking to my brother and making jokes and whatnot, then asked him what my name was because I was next to him. Jimmy thought my brother was like 21, but he’s actually 19, so when he asked how old I was he quickly answered himself, “12?” I said 16, he made more jokes, something about me liking The Wiggles and Twilight, HA! He even said hi to our parents and made more jokes. He’s so funny! Jimmy then introduced Andy Richter! Jimmy talked to Andy about the crowd and he mentioned me! Jimmy pointed to me and said that Bridgett’s 9 years old to Andy, AND ANDY WAVED AT ME! It was awesome. Then, The Basic Cable Band played some amazing music! If you saw Conan on tour last summer or have ever been to a taping, then you know how incredible the band is. They bring so much energy to an already excited crowd! It was so much fun! 

Now, let’s get to the hug. Conan started walking up the stairs into the audience as he sang The End Of The Show Song (it was wonderful), as he was coming back down, my brother was yelling his name and pointing to my poster. My poster said, “I’M CELEBRATING MY 16TH BIRTHDAY CONAN, HUG?” I saw him reading it and I got really excited! He stood in front of me with the mic in his left hand and he put his right arm up to his side, and I stood up. I was hugging Conan! Conan O’Brien! After all these years, so much was rushing through my head at that moment. I couldn’t believe that I was in Burbank, California, in the CONAN studio, HUGGING CONAN! Conan said to me, “Hi! Nice to meet you, it’s nice to meet you!” And as I was hugging him I said, “Thank you so much! I love you!” THEN HE GROWLED. WHILE WE WERE HUGGING CONAN GROWLED. Oh my god, I pretty much just died. I was holding on as long as I could, it felt like a pretty long hug. :) I completely melted. I hugged Conan! It was the greatest moment of my entire life. ♥

Can you believe I’m not even done with this post? It gets even better. After Conan hugged me (I can’t believe I can say that) he walked back onto the set and said that they had a “neat treat” for us. Then he joked about saying the word neat, haha. Everyone was just waiting in their seats patiently. I saw the cue card guy (Steve) walking around with a new card that had these words written on it: Academy Award winner, Forrest Gump, Philadelphia, Saving Private Ryan. I couldn’t believe it. TOM HANKS!? WAS TOM HANKS REALLY GOING TO COME OUT!? At first I thought it was just a joke, it was just going to be something silly. There’s no way Tom Hanks is here. After a couple of minutes, Conan was seated at his desk and it all started. Conan started reading the cue card, and people in the audience started gasping. There was very quiet whispering and gasps. Everyone was so shocked and surprised. When Tom Hanks came out, everyone went crazy and we gave him a standing ovation. The Tom Hanks. It was so surreal. In my mind I was thinking, “Oh my god, Tom Hanks! I love Tom Hanks! Forrest Gump is one of my favorite movies! He’s such an amazing actor! He’s one of my favorite guests! He made Coco catch on! TOM HANKS!” It was a crazy good interview, probably one of my favorites. It was broken up into 3 parts. The 1st part was him telling a story, 2nd part was a story relating to Larry Crowne, his new movie, and 3rd one was a hilarious bit! I don’t want to give anything away (it airs on June 30th) but, there was also another very good friend of the show that made an appearance… ;) After the bit was over, Conan thanked Tom and he started doing this 

• Tom Hanks started doing the Coco thing with his hands, and then the rest of the audience was chanting too. It was so surreal. Conan thanked the audience again, waved, then left. It was incredible. Then most of the audience got up and left the studio. By the way, I haven’t mentioned the actual studio. IT’S BEAUTIFUL. It’s so much smaller than it looks on tv, but it’s gorgeous in person (as it is on tv too). Just being in the studio felt so unreal. The audience set up is pretty much the coolest thing ever. He’s super close during the monologue and the actual stage where his desk is comes forward. Have I mentioned how much makeup Conan wears? No? Well, I’ll write a separate post about it, it’s crazy. ANYWAY, after the show Lisa told us to wait until Rob came out. He came out soon after and I was really excited! My brother is a comedy writer and Rob Kutner is one of his idols. Monologue style jokes is his thing, so it was a dream come true for him to meet one of Conan’s monologue writers. My brother hugged Rob, and I shook his hand. He greeted himself to my parents and then we were on our way backstage. We saw SO MUCH. 
• Where Conan and the writers go over the jokes right before he goes on stage
• Where Conan’s dressing room was (but we didn’t go in)
• The Green Room
• We walked up the stairs that lead to the Team Coco offices! (it’s amazing that so much is in Stage 15)
• We met Chris Ultimo! 

• Briefly interacted with Jordan Schlansky in the hall! (I love him)
• We went into Rob Kutner’s office (where he signed the book)
• We met Todd Levin and Andrés du Bouchet! 

• My brother talked to Mike Sweeney! 
• I saw where Conan’s office is! (but we didn’t go in)
• Talked to a fellow Georgian, Katy, who gave us TEAM COCO stickers! (Katy Wynn, Rob Kutner, and Matt O’Brien are all from Georgia!)
• I ran into Lisa’s office to leave her with my gift for Bley and thank her for everything. She was seriously so sweet and helpful. (I accidentally left our lot passes and a lot map in the present though, oops!)
• We used the stairs as seen in the 24 hour live coco cam!
• We thanked Rob for everything. :)

Team Coco is the nicest group of people in the universe, thank you. ♥