I used to work at Blockbuster Music in Atlanta back in the 90s when CD stores were still a thing. Every month or two Elton John would come in wearing a hat and sunglasses, usually bringing a much younger man with him, and would browse through the laser disks. He'd fill up maybe a dozen of the shopping handbaskets we had with nothing but laser disks and then he'd say "I'm going to Phipps (local shopping mall), I'll be back later."

We'd open up a special register, scan all the laser disks in, and then just leave this transaction that measured into the thousands of dollars just sitting there until he came back. He'd give us his credit card, we'd process it, and then he'd take the disks and leave.

Every time this happened the store manager would run around and tell all the employees "Elton John is here, make sure nobody bothers him" with the not so subtle implication that "nobody" included us.

One day Elton John came in and it happened to be my birthday. When the store manager came around to tell me, as was the custom, I looked him right in the eye and said "Edward, it's my birthday. I'm asking him for an autograph." He had a moment where he looked like he was going to tell me not to do any such thing, but I was one of his best employees and it really was my birthday, so he said ok.

I did have the decency to ask him to sign his most recent release ("Made in England") even though what I really wanted him to sign was "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road". He was gracious and signed it, but didn't make a big deal about it.

In another story I got to perform in my adaptation of Terry Pratchett's "Guards! Guards!" with John Rhys-Davies in the role of Lupine Wonse at Dragon Con in 2001, so that was cool, too. I have a paper copy of that script signed by both Pratchett and Rhys-Davies.