Tuesday, March 1, 2005

See me, typing at you from the comforts of home? It’s truly a modern miracle, easily comparable to the toaster or WD-40, and it’s a convenience I won’t soon renounce. Now that we’ve gotten the important stuff out of the way, let’s adjourn for the evening.

Or let’s not adjourn.

There is an epic struggle for power in our office building, faithful reader, an eternal battle against a property manager hellbent on collecting our bathroom keys. The manager seems reasonable enough, with his garish yellow jacket and confident stride, but he is drawn to these keys like a crackhead. A crackhead set on snorting all our keys. Let’s call him the Keymaster.

Were an outsider to view the efforts of the Keymaster, she would have no choice but to conclude our bathrooms are actually troves glutted with the sacred treasures of King Midas himself. No, that’s not a urinal, you filthy Philistine, it’s an ancient sacrificial pyre nailed to the wall. Toilet paper? I believe you’re looking at rolled parchment. Garbage can? Royal hat.

This is the twisted tango we dance. Someone goes to the bathroom. Unlocks the door with a key. Returns to the office without the key. The Keymaster reclaims the key as if it were a lost child, shuttling it back to its heavenly host while cooing soft admonitions in its ear. Eventually a co-worker will simply go in the drinking fountain. That last part was a lie.

The Keymaster does this to keep the unwashed masses unwashed, such is his way, such is the way it has been for thousands of years. Besides, what right do outsiders have to sneak into our bathrooms and flush our toilets, use our soap, our water? They seem content with leaving surprises in the stairwell, after all.

Speaking of that fateful January day, the offender was identified. A local bum who bears an uncanny resemblance to Dr. Zaius was loitering in the stairwell shortly before the explosion, and I am going to spend some bandwidth to make this more vivid for you.

“Zounds, did I just soil my ship? Quickly, to the cooling pond!”

There’s the 170-pound gorilla, boys and girls, and I’ll tell you something else. One buddy theorized he took a swim at the local Y after the incident. Some theories are meant to be squelched immediately, wouldn’t you say?