Then he smiled at me

And my August ennui went away. Pah-rumpa-bum-bum.

Today was just another random Tuesday in icky August. One of my two best girls at the place that pays me was out, so my other best girl, Laura, and I had our lunch in a conference room as per standard operating procedure without her. I went outside to smoke my dessert and noticed a gaggle of RPD officers hanging out in front of our building (including the Segway cops, whose job I have never understood as I've only ever seen them answering questions about the Segways). The street was being blocked off.

Then I heard someone say, "Obama's coming."

"Excuse me," I said to the two Segway cops closest to me, "but is Barack Obama coming here?" "I didn't say that," one responded. "You said it, not us," the other smirked. "So it would be totally cool for me to just hang out here on the street looking around?," I asked. "Sure," cop one answered with a smile (we're terribly polite here in the South), "You can stand here looking at this lovely planter as long as you want."

It was then that I saw the dark sedans bearing men in black being escorted through the barricade. I raced back to the 14th floor and yelled, "Obama's coming here!," and dragged Laura back outside with me. The two of us stood in the sun for half an hour as the police force increased and the bomb-sniffing dog inspected the parked cars. "I want to pet the puppy," I said. "That puppy is not meant for petting," Laura replied.

We hung around in the gathering crowd for close to an hour, standing behind the nearly naked hot dog hottie, who, strangely, was wearing capri pants today. We were hot and getting tired and the sodas on the hot dog cart were looking really good, but we couldn't bring ourselves to purchase anything from her.

The "Jesus Saves" tee-shirt guy realized the crowd in front of the Sheraton was bigger than his usual audience in front of the courthouse, so he came to our block to scream. I saw another street preacher I know from standing outside making his way toward us. I warned Laura, "He's going to ask us if we've accepted Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior. Just say 'yes' and he'll keep going." He did, we said "yes" and he initially walked away, then came back and mumbled something, but we just ignored him.

"I can't take the heat anymore," Laura said. "I'm going to stay here for one more minute," I told her. As soon as she left, our friend Matt came out and joined me. Then the police put up tape and told the crowd to stand behind it. Matt and I got a spot right in the front. We stood there patiently making small talk for 20 minutes or so, then I heard my name being called from behind me. It was my darling Laura passing me a bottle of water.

The word-of-mouth-relying, downtown crowd had swelled to a couple hundred people with camera phones at the ready. I had been outside in direct sunlight for more than an hour at this point, a good 40 minutes more than I spend in direct sunlight per quarter. Suddenly, people standing with us on Fayetteville Street started running toward the door to the BB&T building, which connects to the Sheraton and shares a lobby on Salisbury Street, where the main entrance to the hotel sits.

Matt and I were reticent to give up our awesome spot next to the police tape, so Laura went to scope out the scene. When she leaned out the door and waved us in that direction, we took off running. Laura and I totally lost Matt in our haste to get downstairs to the main lobby, where people were already starting to scream as Obama entered the building.

He was a total rock star in his sunglasses and tailored suit. He's unbelievably handsome in real life -- and so tall. Thank goodness he's tall. I'm 5'6 and saw something like this behind the crowd as he whizzed through:



Laura is 5'7 and saw this:



Our friend Capricia is only 5'2, but she was on the staircase, stood on her tippy-toes and raised the camera all the way up over her head and snapped blindly, capturing this:


It happened really fast and we went back to work feeling giddy. My work day was slow anyway, so I just stared out my window at the Sheraton, just in case his room was on my side and he decided to look contemplatively out of his window as he talked to Michelle about his day so far. After two hours, I looked down and saw that all the government cars and SUVs had parked on our side of the still-blocked-off Fayetteville Street, so I yelled at Laura and our friend Holly to meet me in the conference room where we'd have a better view.

The three of us, Laura and I complaining that we probably didn't smell very good after being in the sun for so long, watched out the window in the conference room as the Raleigh cops and Secret Service put up yellow tape and cleared the way again. "I'm going back down!," I announced, running for the elevator, which took its time coming.

I went back down and, after standing in the sweet spot in front of our building directly across the street from the doors to the hotel, was told to move to end of the street (which, fortunately, is only about 40 feet from the back entrance to the Sheraton). I stood there for about 20 minutes before the Secret Service agents hustled him out into one of the two identical SUVs parked in the front.

He had changed into workout clothes (we later learned he'd gone to Peak Fitness before his speech at the fairgrounds). The SUV pulled forward a little and paused before turning. I was standing pretty much by myself and began screaming and jumping up and down, waving my arms over my head like he was a member of Duran Duran and it was 1984.

Dunno what it is about me that people notice. Must be my beaming smile. Or my big boobs. But Barack Obama looked right at me, smiled and waved. He could very well have been telling the Secret Service agents to keep an eye on the hysterical, pink-haired girl for all I know, but we definitely looked right at each other for at least a brief moment in time on a random Tuesday in icky August, and it made my heart soar.

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Laura and I were leaving the building on our way to our standing Tuesday board meeting at a nearby bar and she was telling me how she told Holly that the street preacher told us, "Your mama won't get you into heaven," and Holly replied, "Leigh Ann's mama is sure trying."

"Laura!," I shrieked, "He said 'Obama won't get you into heaven!'"

And we laughed and laughed. Today was a good day.

UPDATE: Laura and I were just a few feet away from appearing on my beloved Gawker!