Jason Schommer
Appearances
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Future Looks Bright
Standing in a sea of organic produce consisting of pineapples, cucumbers, and strawberries, I saw her standing there in a wide-brimmed hat, a cardigan that was tan and white over a summery outfit and flat shoes. Our eyes met, we smiled, I knew, and she knew that I knew. Now the fact that I'm at Ralph's Grocery in North Hollywood is surreal at best.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Future Looks Bright
A week earlier I had been offered a job to work behind the scenes on a TV show. So I quit my job, threw everything I owned into a storage unit, and drove cross country. Once there, after working a few days, I was notified that there was going to be some production changes and it wasn't going to work out. Scheduling issues. Yeah, no grand, you're fired, no scandalous story, nothing.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Future Looks Bright
Just scheduling issues. So I had come to Ralph's Grocery to emotionally eat. And the moment I saw her, I was immediately whisked away to a snowy mountaintop. It was Kearney Wilson from Wilson Phillips. Oh my God! Are you kidding me? Kearney freaking Wilson? Now if you don't know who Kearney Wilson is, let me tell you. She is one third of the power trio Wilson Phillips.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Future Looks Bright
who in 1990 gave the world the number one anthem for anyone, for anyone who was teetering and on the brink of giving up to just hold on. Now I love pop culture, I'm a pop culture fanatic, so I immediately, recognizing the magnitude of this, knew I needed to follow Carney Wilson. So I did, and it was awkward. She got pork chops. I bought pork chops. I'm a vegetarian. She bought flowers.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Future Looks Bright
I bought flowers. I'm allergic. She was in feminine hygiene products. I'm a boy. So I ducked around the aisle to text my friend, Jen, to let her know of this moment. Now, Jen is a massive Wilson Phillips fan. She actually was in negotiations with their management to have them perform at her graduation.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Future Looks Bright
I sent her a text, oh my God, I'm at Ralph's Grocery in North Hollywood and I just saw Carney Wilson. And that's when Carney Wilson walked right past me and mouthed, hello. She didn't say it, she just mouthed. Now, if you are a famous singer or an actor and you talk in public, people recognize your voice. She couldn't say hello. She just had to mouth it.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Future Looks Bright
Because then five people, aisles over, would have come running over, screaming, sing, sing, sing. And she would have been like, no, I'm just here to buy yogurt.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Future Looks Bright
sing and she would have felt pressured and she just would want to go home she's not even wearing makeup and they would have been demanding it and so then she would have started singing an acapella version of her number one hit hold on and then people would have cracked out their phones to record it and put it on youtube in hopes of it going viral and then people would have started screaming and losing their minds and then tmz would have shown up and it would have been a debacle don't ask me how i know these things i just do so she mouthed
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Future Looks Bright
After following her around the store and acquiring a cart of stuff I don't want or need, they came to check out. She was two aisles over, and I watched them scan every item out of her cart. And I was trying to time it perfectly so we could have a moment, her and I, as we left the store. But I had the slowest cashier in the world. She had the fastest. She walked past the end of my aisle.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Future Looks Bright
She turned around, looked at me, and said goodbye. I died. It was just like their song, Hold On. Someday somebody's going to make you turn around and say goodbye. I, Jason Schober from Little Falls, Minnesota, made Cardi Wilson turn around and say goodbye. She got into the elevator to go down to the parking garage, and as the doors started to close, I thought, do it.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Future Looks Bright
Just reach out and yell, hold on! Hold on! But I didn't. I'm respectful. So here we are, chasing our dreams, doing what we want to do. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't. We'll go through horrible things in life. We'll fall in love, we'll get divorced. We'll have successes and failures. We'll fall flat on our face and sometimes we'll pick ourselves up, sometimes we won't.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Future Looks Bright
Sometimes what unites us all is the fact that we just find that little kernel of hope. Sometimes we find it in a prayer or a mantra or a text from a loved one, just that one little thing that we cling on to.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Future Looks Bright
And sometimes it's seeing a celebrity in a grocery store that sang one of your favorite songs in three-part harmony that gives you the hope to hold on for one more day because things will go your way.