My hand was already on the doorknob when I heard her voice: “Sir, you can’t go in there.” I turned to my right to see a short older lady with glasses.“It’s fine. I work here.” I showed her the badge I’d fashioned. She nodded. Bingo.
“Now if you’ll excuse me — ” I let the pause linger, looking into her eyes. I wanted to savor this moment. This wasn’t part of the plan, but it felt so good to be right for once. She looked intermittently between the floor and my eyes, which were now as wide as I could possibly make them.
I set down my briefcase and folded my arms, still glaring at her incredulously. Several minutes passed. People came and went behind us. When I could see she was starting to cry I realized I was getting bored, so I finished: “If you’ll excuse me, I have business to attend to.”
I gathered my things and walked directly through the door into the utility closet. Ugh - the utility closet? Seriously? Man!
Well, I can’t just turn around now, I thought. So I got out my flashlight, wedged myself between two shelves, and started reading a newspaper. There were a lot of old newspapers in there.
A couple times during the day a guy opened the door and took or returned some mops and buckets and the like. We made some idle conversation about politics and geography. It turns out he also liked maps, so I asked him to help me plan a way out of the closet that would spare me the embarrassment of walking past old lady frown-face security guard.
We sat and thought and thought, and finally I came up with a perfect plan. But, he didn’t like the idea of taking his “face off,” so we went with plan B. Between the newspapers and the cleaning products, we were able to start a glorious fire in no time.
“When she sees the smoke coming out from under the closet door, she’s bound to come check it out!” I cackled, coughing through the growing haze. He didn’t say anything, so I just went on, struggling for breath: “She’s bound to. Then we escape… right under her very nose… like deer in the fog.”
Like clockwork, four minutes later the security guard opened the door and screamed. She showered me with a fire extinguisher as I fell limply out of the closet. It was so predictable. I couldn’t talk because my muscles didn’t work anymore, but when she got directly into my line of sight I knew she could read through the ash in my eyes: “If you’ll excuse me.”
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