Sharp Impressions
Thursday of this week I went to the monthly CREW (Commercial Real Estate Women) lunch in Walnut Creek. Upon leaving the meeting I remembered I wanted to run by the Downtown Walnut Creek Business Association to see if they had any posters of downtown Walnut Creek. Tomorrow, Saturday, we are holding an outreach program for high school girls to introduce them to careers in commercial real estate. Our subject property, proposed to be redeveloped, is in Downtown Walnut Creek so I was hoping to find a cool poster with info about the surrounding attractions.
So I google map navigated myself to the building a few blocks from the lunch location. I turned the corner and looked for a place to park and pulled into a space on the street. The spaces were at any angle, neither perpendicular nor paralell to the sidewalk. As I pulled into my space I saw a man with the hatch of his truck down in the space immediately next to me on the driver’s side and he was gingerly sharpening a large knife. It was quite a frightening sight for a split second. The only time I see people with knives that large is either on the food channel or while watching Dexter. I paused for a moment as the knife made two or three more passes on the sharpener and my mind tried to understand which one of these things didn’t belong. Eventually my eyes made their way to the lettering on the side of the truck “Mobile Knife Sharpening”. Relief.
I got out of the car and couldn’t but nearly giggle at the man sharpening knifes on the street. I quickly said something I am sure original like, “Ya, that’s not creepy”. He laughed and said well the company description on the car normally helps. And I replied yes indeed it does, when part of me thought it was more likely just a really good cover for a mass murder like Dexter. The knife sharpener turned up his creepy, horror flick charm and with a monster style giggle proceeded to sharpen his knife as if a really good member of a haunted house act. I laughed at the entire situation and escaped to gather my downtown map. He handed me a company brochure and told me I had a nice smile. Quite a nice mobile knife sharpening guy!