Last night I helped my friends BC and NC pack up their Penske moving truck to make their move across the country to upstate NY. As a gift, BC gave me the pictured IKEA chair that he didn’t want to take with him. Mine has darker wood though. After we loaded up the truck, I took the chair down to see if I could fit it into my car. I couldn’t. So I proceeded to dismantle the chair a little so that it would fit. BC lives (or I guess now lived :( ) in Chinatown. If you are familiar at all with Portland, you’ll know that Chinatown is not the best part of town. It’s kind of sketchy.
So there I was, dismantling an IKEA chair at 11:30 at night in khaki’s and a white polo in Chinatown. As I was working, I noticed a guy come out from BC’s building in shorts and flip flops just kind of casually hanging out on the sidewalk. Another guy approached him and there was an exchange of brown paper bags. They were probably no more than 30 feet from me. I realized that I was witnessing my first drug deal up close and personal. At some point a lady joined the two and I’m not sure what her role was. Maybe a prostitute thrown in for frequent flyers? Not sure. When the deal was done and the dealer walked past me, he asked, “What’s wrong, did you break that chair?” I just smiled and said no.
Perhaps the best part of this story is that several months ago, maybe even a year, I witnessed a man defecating on a garage door in the exact same spot. As I write this, I have two thoughts. One, if the Portland Chamber of Commerce stumbles upon my blog, they will for sure be contacting me to do some promotional/travel/PR work for the city. Two, if I ever run out of things to blog about, I’ll just park my car on Everett between SW 4th and 5th and just wait for the magic to happen.
So there I was, dismantling an IKEA chair at 11:30 at night in khaki’s and a white polo in Chinatown. As I was working, I noticed a guy come out from BC’s building in shorts and flip flops just kind of casually hanging out on the sidewalk. Another guy approached him and there was an exchange of brown paper bags. They were probably no more than 30 feet from me. I realized that I was witnessing my first drug deal up close and personal. At some point a lady joined the two and I’m not sure what her role was. Maybe a prostitute thrown in for frequent flyers? Not sure. When the deal was done and the dealer walked past me, he asked, “What’s wrong, did you break that chair?” I just smiled and said no.
Perhaps the best part of this story is that several months ago, maybe even a year, I witnessed a man defecating on a garage door in the exact same spot. As I write this, I have two thoughts. One, if the Portland Chamber of Commerce stumbles upon my blog, they will for sure be contacting me to do some promotional/travel/PR work for the city. Two, if I ever run out of things to blog about, I’ll just park my car on Everett between SW 4th and 5th and just wait for the magic to happen.
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