There Once Was A Mayor of San Pedro

San Pedro, CA, was very much a locals sort of town, home to families who had lived there for decades. Working for Enterprise, it was easy to track down a renter who owed you money. They either were a longshoreman or a recovering alcoholic at a bar.
My favorite repeat renter was Alex. He was late 60’s or early 70’s, and owned The Green Onion restaurant. His staff was instructed to comp most of our dinner, which usually consisted of margaritas and chips y salsa. I went in there so often with my Assistant Managers, Brian and Danielle, that they took our picture and hung it up next to the table we frequented, a sort of Hall of Fame wall for patrons of the restaurant.
It was Christmas time in the small, sleepy seaside town of San Pedro. Brian and I had called it a day, and went to the restaurant for dinner. Alex had Santa Claus statues everywhere, and many of them were the big creepy 3’ tall kind that would give you nightmares as a child. Most of them were just lifelike dolls, but some would light up and sing & dance when you walked by. After a couple of margaritas, Brian and I looked over to see an elderly gentleman dancing with the largest of the dancing Santas.
After yelling out cheers of encouragement (this old timer very obviously had gotten some recent practice on his grandkids’ Dance Dance Revolution game the way he was moving), he came over and sat with us. He introduced himself as the Mayor of San Pedro.
Brian: OMG, it is an honor to meet you. Since you are a city official, I am surprised that Sapphire here hasn’t blown you in a public restroom yet.
The Mayor was so drunk that he good naturedly agreed, and then ordered us a round of shots.
For months after we saw the drunken Mayor of San Pedro get his groove on with the Pit Boss of Santa Clauses, whenever we would see him in The Green Onion, we would say hello and buy the Mayor a drink, which he would happily accept. This went on for about a year when one day we were having a talk with Alex at the rental branch while we waited for his Cargo van to arrive. Brian brought up the story about the Mayor dancing with the lifesized Santa, and Alex looked confused.
Alex: The Mayor? What Mayor?
Brian: The Mayor of San Pedro. He’s always at your place.
Alex: San Pedro doesn’t have a Mayor. That was probably Charlie, he always tells people that he’s the Mayor. He’s just the town drunk.
After that epic let down of meeting someone that could possibly be 1,725th in line to the presidency was all a sham, Brian and I continued to see the Mayor around town. And even though we knew the truth, we let him live his Sally Fields “you really like me” moment of glory, and never let on that we knew he was not San Pedro royalty. But we did stop offering to buy him alcohol.