I asked for Sprite.
I was looking at some investment property a potential client was thinking of buying and all of a sudden there's a lot of cops on the street in Olde Town Petersburg. I go in the building and back out and as I step out this lady behind me yells, "Oh shit! It's Obama." I turn around and, sure enough, Obama is getting off a bus and going into Longstreet's restaurant.
I go over to the secret service roped off line because its a glass front, and how often can you say you've run into a Presidential candidate on the street? The media bus pulls up a minute of two later and they go in then a secret service guy comes out and says they want a few more people inside. They let a few old African American ladies in Obama hats in. By this point, people are running up and down Sycamore and Bank Streets yelling "It's Obama!" and every Petersburg citizen is running this way. A few seconds later they ask me if I want to go in (even though I wasn't trying to get in nor knew I was in the "meet Obama" line) and I go, "uh sure."
They pat me down past the barricade and check my briefcase then I go into the restaurant and mull around for a minute or two. They only let like 6 people in who weren't already in the restaurant (this was a completely unannounced stop from what I can surmise [and common sense]).
Obama comes over and shakes my hand and tells me he likes my tie and I tell him "Thanks... yours is nice too." He laughs. Then he asks me what I do and I tell him I'm in real estate and he says the real estate industry is hurting and asked how my company was doing and I said we weren't hit nearly as hard as most because we weren't in sub-prime and did little re-fi business, and he said the industry needed a "change". I said yeah. He said it was hot outside and asked if I wanted a soda before I left and I said no, but he said it was too hot to walk around in a suit and look at properties without something to drink and said he'd pay for it. I told him I'd take a Sprite because the entire thing was getting a but surreal and I kinda wanted to leave because the news people were snapping pictures like crazy.
So they got me a soda and I said thanks (he was talking to someone else at this point) as I left and he did the quarter turn and nod. It was pretty strange.
I'll look at my Times-Dispatch in the morning and see if I'm in any of the shots. I pretty much have to be.
