I can already see this is not going to be easy. Every time I think I've got The Official GP Blogs Brushes With Greatness™ list pegged, I remember another special moment in my modestly astounding Celebrity Enhanced Life. Then, if it's worthy of inclusion, I must discern its pecking order and diligently inform #10 he/she has been preempted. The famous have been known to hurl themselves over cliffs for less.

Let me show you what I mean.

Tonight I just remembered (how could I forget?) an amazing dinner I had in my 20s with a relatively famous man. Checking my list I judged this encounter immediately shot him up to claim the #3 spot. Everyone below moved down a notch  This bumped  #10, Washington Redskins coach and NASCAR racing guru Joe Gibbs.

Coach Gibbs was doing a signing at the CBA bookseller's convention promoting a volume he had recently written. I was there doing the same. Meeting him and shaking his hand was only moderately exciting to me as I have no great allegiance to the Redskins or the NFL in general.

No, it was the uncommon gesture he  offered that I will always remember. His Super Bowl ring was sitting on the counter next to Gibbs and he allowed anyone who desired to pick it up and momentarily place the bejeweled symbol of excellence on his hand. How could I resist? I'm sure my testosterone was surging, my blood coursing just a little faster through my veins as I wore Coach Gibbs' ring.

How many guys thought about making a mad dash for the exit? Well, at least one that I know of. I'll admit—it was a heady experience. But since my name wasn't John Riggins, I returned the ring with thanks, deciding against a life on the run from Paul Tagliabue and his goombas.

And Joe Gibbs doesn't even make my list! Is this going to be a great time or what?

Without further ado, which is a phrase whose origin I cannot even begin to fathom, I present to you  my list of close encounters with earthbound celestial beings.

10.  Comedian Albert Brooks . I nearly pushed him off the list instead of Gibbs. He had been a tentative pick at best, owing to the fact that I never actually met him. But Albert nudges Joe into   ignominy by virtue of the fact I think this is a better story.

A couple months back I found myself two carts behind the master comic and filmmaker in line at Costco in Van Nuys, CA. I remember thinking to myself, "Even rich people like big boxes and bargains."

As a student of comedy I idolized Brooks growing up. He and Robert Klein were the painfully funny older brothers I never had. I memorized his album, Comedy Minus One, and absorbed as much of his comic sensibility as my pituitary glands would permit.

When I recognized Brooks I just wanted to go up to him and say, "Mr. Brooks . . . you changed the way I look at life. You made me laugh. You help me understand funny." But he was two carts away, engaged in animated discourse with a friend, looking around frantically for an item he apparently had forgotten to pick up.

He left the line and returned empty handed. He left the line a second time and passed right by me. Clearly he needed this item. I wanted to go up and ask, "How can I help? I owe you. You go left. I'll go right and we'll tear this place apart looking for the thing-a-ma-who's-it you need. OK?"

But I didn't. I let Albert Brooks suffer his loss while I brooded mine.  And do you know why? Do you know why I let a boyhood icon brush past me like we were comic tugboats in the night? Because of the code. That's right. THE CODE. It is an unwritten rule in L.A. that you don't bother famous people when they are just going about the normal, everyday pursuits you and I go through. We respect their privacy. And then we kick ourselves later for missing what could have been an incredible moment in our lives—all because we don't want to become a story in their repertoire of insolent louts they had to deal with that day.

As he returned, again empty handed, I leaned over to The Toddler and whispered to her in the cart's kiddie seat, "See that man over there? That's Nemo's daddy."

So this opening gambit was, indeed, a literal brush with greatness. I know I will always regret passing up the chance to meet my comic hero at Costco. But who knows. Maybe God will give me a second chance one day. I've been wondering lately if Albert Brooks might also be a Pic 'n Save kind of guy.

This was Part Two of Brushes With Greatness. Follow the entire series here.