A Christmas tale two months late.

The Buford Highway Flea Market/Holiday Mall is at once magnificent and completely scary.
Back in the day it was your standard antique mall, where there were some folks selling genuine antiques but mostly it was people renting a booth to empty out their garages. It has since mutated into this strange landscape of seediness and a mishmash of the prevalent cultures around my neighborhood: Korean, Indian, Philippine, and Latino.

I love just walking around there; it feels as if I stumbled upon some mercantile train wreck.
Today however I had specific business. After I parked a little far out since it was so busy, I noticed the weird limping guy staring at me. My raisincake senses started tingling so I briskly cut around a Lincoln Continental with an airbrushed Tasmanian devil to make it to the front doors unabated.

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The favor Barack Obama did for me

A couple of Saturdays ago it was late and my brother and I had managed to make it all the way through San Antonio on I-10. We had been driving since three in the morning in a 28 foot truck packed with all of our parents belongings and we both were recovering from the flu. It was my turn to get the room, so we stopped at a solid two star hotel chain.
The lady at desk asked me to wait since she was helping someone else so I wandered into a little fake living room area with a crappy TV that had the magenta turned up too high. ABC was posting primary results and they had predicted a winner and were prepared to announce. I was standing right next to a man about four inches shorter than I was, he had a mouth full of gold teeth and the name "Guillermo" was neatly embroidered onto his hotel employee uniform.
The TV lady rattled off the states that Barack Obama had taken and when I raised my hands in excitement Guillermo did the same thing and we looked at each other frozen for a minute as if we had both been caught in some subversive secret.

He gestured to me and whispered "You, uh uh... Obama?"
"Yes, yes, como Obama! Yo Tambien!" I patted my chest as I struggled through my crappy Spanish.

and then in a surprising swell of recognition Guillermo and I just hugged each other and jumped up and down a little.

When I went up to the desk I asked the lady for a non-smoking room with two double beds and while she tapped into computer she said with confusion in her voice, "Do you KNOW Guillermo?"

"Nope, we just met."