It Was No Fantasy: Long-Time Fan's Surprise Of A Lifetime After Mariah Carey's Car Breaks Down In Manhattan
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) - A grocery store manager in Manhattan had the surprise of a lifetime when an iconic singer walked into his store.
Their interaction now has thousands of views on social media.
It all began with a mishap on the Upper West Side.
On Wednesday, superstar Mariah Carey ran into a bit of a situation.
"We're in the middle of the road. We're stuck in the middle of the road," Carey said in a video posted to Twitter.
Her car broke down in Manhattan.
"It's not the best excursion we've ever had," she said.
But Carey made the most of it, roaming the streets of the Upper West Side, singing in the rain.
In typical New York fashion, many paid no mind. But it was a whole different story when she walked into a grocery store on West 98th Street and Broadway.
"This is a surreal moment, I swear," said West Side Market manager Homer Panteloglou, who happens to be a big fan. He thought he was, as Carey might put it, deep in a daydream.
"She actually looked at me and I said, 'Oh my god is that Mariah Carey?'" he said.
And it was no fantasy. After breaking into song, he made to sure to explain all he wanted for Christmas as a little kid was her.
"I wouldn't be able to eat. I'd be like, 'Oh my God, I love her so much,''" he told Carey.
"But we're here together now and making it through this rain," she said.
"When I was kid, I had a crush on her. Just a basic 9-, 10-year-old crush, watching Mariah Carey on MTV," he told CBS2's Reena Roy. "She is amazing. She really is amazing. She was something else. She's so down to earth... She took a couple pics with customers... Two days later, people started sending me a whole bunch of links to Twitter."
"What was going through your mind?" Roy asked.
"I still can't believe it," he said.
The interaction was probably no longer than one of her hit songs, but for this employee, it was a chart topper.
