Meeting my first Animator

The following story I am about to tell is a True account. There are some who will not believe this story mainly animation professionals who live in their own little world and thats fine believe what you want. But I know this to be true because it happened to me......

Some years ago I was a rabid animation buff, I loved Cel artworks and I had begun a hefty collection. It was through this affiliation that I recieved an invite to meet my very first animator.
I couldn't wait I was so happy I had never met anyone who had worked in this particular field and it just seemed that throughout my life these particular people were like gods to me. To make a character literally come to life was astounding.

So it was I decided that I must thank this animator for all the joy he had given me throughout the years. But how??? I soon decided that by using my knowledge of art I would create a piece of artwork, a Collage of all the characters he had worked with and in the center I would place a caricature of the animator. I poured my heart and soul into the art finding inspiration where ever I could. And Three Days later it was complete I was so Proud of my achievement.

And so that night I went to the party to meet a man I believed to be a god. I waited in line patiently as I watched many a person go up and talk to the animator. And then it was my turn I pulled out my artwork and presented it to him and said thankyou. The Animator looked at it and said 'Oh My Well Thankyou Its very good' and I began to walk away believing mission accomplished but then I turned around......... I shouldn't have turned around.... in the corner of my eye and to my dissallusionment he flipped the artwork to the blank page and began to scribble on it ' HE WAS CHECKING HIS ART PENS ON IT!!' and then he tossed it away. I was crushed!!
He died shortly after and the gallery where we had met sent out flyers using his death to make a quick sale stating that now his artwork was worth more and they still had plenty of his artworks still for sale at rock bottom prices. Rough Justice maybe for a career that spanned 60 years.

So thats my first meeting with a real life animator, I've had a few more since then and actually much better experiences but then you would only want to know about the bad ones now wouldn't you?