Claire and I crashed the Toronto Centre Liberal nomination meeting tonight. (How amused was I to see at least four or five other people at the meeting who I know are supporting my campaign? We exchanged knowing glances and Sting-style nose-taps. I guess it was just the place to be.) As of right now neither the blogosphere nor Google News are reporting the results of the vote between Bob Rae and Meredith Cartwright.

In conversation with Rob Oliphant and Mathieu Chantelois (a former nomination contestant and once rumoured nomination contestant, respectively) I heard a funny story. First though, some background.

A few weeks back I was sitting outside of Starbucks on Church Street with some friends, people watching. One man walked by wearing a Michael Ignatieff scarf. “Hey look,” we said. “That guy’s wearing a Michael Ignatieff scarf.” Then, two minutes later, Bob Rae walked by. “Hey look,” we said. “There’s Bob Rae.” So I got up and introduced myself as the Green candidate, we chatted for a bit, and then he continued on his walk.

Now, back to the nomination meeting. When Rob introduced me to Mathieu as the nominated Green candidate, Mathieu said, “oh, so you work at Starbucks.” Not having the above story fresh in my mind, I thought he was making some strange joke. (“Because the Starbucks sign is green?,” I thought.) But yes, as it turns out there’s a story going around in the Rae campaign (Mathieu hadn’t heard this directly from Bob) that Bob met me when I sold him a coffee.

No? Ok, well, it was funny to me.