MayorWatch: Check.

I’m sitting in Kaladi Bros. working on my thesis (which OH MY EFFING GOD IS DUE ON TUESDAY SO WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING RIGHT NOW?) when my phone vibrates. It’s the Brubster, calling from work.

“I just sold your boyfriend a guitar stand,” he said. I processed for a minute.

“Which one?” I finally asked.

“Begich,” he said. (Side Note: It took me a few minutes to figure out who he meant because, due to some in-joke with someone somewhere, my brother pronounces the mayor’s last name with a long “i” and the emphasis on the second syllable, so it comes out “Bə 'gīch.”)

Apparently, one of the items on Mayor Mark’s to-do list for this chilly Saturday afternoon was “go to music store with adorable young son” (check), followed by “pick up copies of the Anchorage Press” (check) and then, of course, “have playful newspaper fight in parking lot of music store” (check). Oh, also? “Be cutest mayor in whole wide world.” Check!

By way of a postscript — it’s SOP at the Brubster’s place of employ to ask for the a customer’s last name at the register to see if they’re already in the system, and the Brubster, joker that he is, asked Mayor Mark for his last name. And do you know what the mayor did? He gave him his last name. Like it was totally reasonable that someone wouldn’t know who he was. As opposed to, say, certain state legislators and United States Senators who are known, at the airport and the like, to actually utter the phrase “Excuse, me do you know who I am?” (Side Note: The Brubster did point out to the mayor that he was kidding. I assume a good laugh was had by all, but I was too busy gushing about the adorability of the parking-lot newspaper fight to hear the end of the story.)

And please, before you comment — “Stalking” is such an ugly word. I prefer “healthy adoration.”