Once upon a time, President Obama's popularity actually reached rock star status, but that's so 2008 and he knows it. Still, it had to sting just a tiny bit when Madison, a sixth grader at a Washington, D.C., charter school where the president and First Lady Michelle Obama participated in a 9/11 service project, shared that she'd hoped the day's VIP would be a famous pop star.

As Madison worked alongside Obama filling backpacks with toys and books that will be distributed as birthday gifts for children living at a nearby homeless shelter, the two began to chat. She told the president that when she'd learned a special guest would be coming that day, she thought it "would be Beyoncé."

"I really wanted it to be," she said.

Good sport that he is, the president said he understood and that his daughters, Malia and Sasha, would feel the same way, too.

"But then I realized it was gonna be you, and that was even better," Madison added, which the president said he appreciated even if it's not really true.

The first lady went with Madison's first instinct, however.

"I'd rather see Beyoncé," she said.

Follow Joyce Jones on Twitter: @BETpolitichick.

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 (Photo: Martin H. Simon-Pool/Getty Images)