If you’re like most locals, you probably found yourself asking this question recently. Sadly enough, it probably had nothing to do with the deep spiritual introspection of the season and everything to do with that other deep-seated, human urge: good, old-fashioned gawking.

That’s right, just as the Easter Bunny was about to hop into town, he was upstaged by a mysterious masked man. OK, so technically it was the masked man’s sidekick, but no one was splitting horsetails when Johnny Depp covertly arrived in town a few weeks back.

Needless to say, for a B-list town such as ourselves, where Chaz Bono is about as good as it gets, this was the biggest news since Oprah got lost here on her way to Telluride. Personally, I hadn’t been that excited since Dog the Bounty Hunter called me up and yelled at me for an hour. And the best part was, this wasn’t your average keep-the-limo-running-while-we-ride-our-own-private-train-car-to-Silverton celebrity driveby. No – the poster bad boy for Gen X himself, Johnny Depp, was purportedly hanging out, smokin cigs outside the Ranch, bellying up at Orio’s and tossing back hand grenades at the sushi joint – you know, slumming with the common mountainfolk.

Strangely enough, for a town that isn’t impressed much by the rich and famous, we were falling all over ourselves like an over-served Robin Leach at an Oscars afterparty. Suddenly, the topic turned from “whether or not Horse Gulch was riding” to “Did you hear? JOHNNY DEPP.”

Nevermind that most of us don’t watch or even own TV, and the last time we saw Depp was during his “21 Jump Street Days.” For some reason, his badass leather jacket, smoldering stare and slicked back hair stuck with us all these years (which is more than I can say for Depp’s pudgy sidekick whose name escapes me but sort of looked like a young Meatloaf.) The fact is, Johnny Depp oozes cool. Even in his corpse-like rendition of Edward Scissorshands, he was cool, in a goth Rainman sort of way. Heck, his initials are the same as James Dean. Coincidence? I think not.

Plus, he’s got some serious acting chops – just the fact that no one actually saw him while he was here is proof enough that he is a master of disguise.

Of course, it’s his off-stage antics won most of our hearts. You know you’ve got it going on when your name becomes a verb for “completely and utterly laying waste to high-end establishments, that either condone such actions or think it’s cute.” I heard when rockstars want to get rowdy, they say they’re gonna “party like Johnny Depp.” Heck, even Keith Moon could take a few notes from the Depp handbook. Sure, we may have missed “Pirates of the Caribbean I-VII,” but throwing stuff out of hotel room windows, that’s something we can all identify with.

Perhaps it was this inherent desire to be near coolness or at least get a chance to break stuff, but for days, weeks even, local speculation swirled around “WWJD” (what was Johnny doing?) From there, Johnny obsession grew to a feverish pitch of  “WIJS” (where is Johnny staying?); “WWJW” (what was Johnny wearing?); “WIJE” (where is Johnny eating?); “WIJS” (what if Johnny’s short?) and “WDJT” (what did Johnny think?)

It was the last question that was the most important, after all, the town that prides itself on being uncool wouldn’t want the coolest guy in the world to think it wasn’t cool, right? Of course this created the internal dilemma of: is it cooler to be cool (which we’re not) or should we just be our uncool selves (which is also sort of cool)?

Anyway, this quandary did not stop half the town from going on round-the-clock Johnny gawkfest and taking up smoking for the first time in hopes Johnny would bum a cig (I even know a few people who went so far as to inhale.) I myself, will admit to nearly falling prey to a half-baked plan for a late-night Johnny stakeout at the Ranch.

Not that I had the slightest idea what I would do or say if, in fact, I saw Johnny, given I was able to identify him without his ’80s Flock-a-dour and bomber jacket. I suppose I could show him my tattoos, if I had any, or ask him how his French manor was. Or maybe, if I got really crazy, we could do shots of tequila and go get tattoos, that is if any tattoo parlors were open in our small burg after dark. Worst-case, we could take a ride on my cruiser, throw rocks off the river bridge and have him autograph my Patagonia sports bra.

Anyway, it was a good thing that soberer heads prevailed that night, because as it turns out, unless I was 8 feet tall, had a wooden leg or was a conjoined Chinese twin, Johnny wanted nothing to do with me. That’s right – not even my uncanny resemblance to Paul Schaeffer (a distant cousin) would have won me favor, unless of course, I also happened to have a glass eye and webbed feet.

So, I guess there was a bit of collective dismay when the Johnny circus pulled up stakes and rolled out of town without so much as a broken lampshade or unpaid room service bill.

Which might be a good thing. Can you imagine if he really did like it here and decided to stay? There’d be paparazzi on all our favorite trails, the price of hair product would go through the roof and our favorite watering holes would be filled with Johnny gapers pretending to know how to smoke. Not to mention the entire neighborhood would be Depp-ed, and we’d all have hedges like Disneyland.

Besides, I hear he owns an island in the Caribbean or something like that. So for now, our own little slice of paradise is safe – peg legs, grizzled visages, warty noses and all.

– Missy Votel