I Could Have Died

I should preface this story by telling you my husband thinks I'm a little, teensy, weensy bit overdramatic sometimes. For instance, the other night while making dinner I opened up an ancient canister of breadcrumbs & discovered bugs in it. I don't want to describe it, because it makes me throw up a little bit in my mouth. Since my husband was at school, I had to take care of the situation - meaning, I had to quickly slam the lid down, wrap the whole thing in a grocery bag, & take it out to the trashcan outside. When my husband got home I said, "Honey!! We had a MAJOR situation tonight while you were gone! MAJOR!"

So, "I Could Have Died" as a title for this next story of what happened to me today could be an exaggeration. But, still, it was really scary.

About 30 minutes ago I had to go to the bathroom. So, I walked out of my office, and down the hall towards the bathroom just in time to see my secretary walking in the bathroom. Now, there are 3 stalls in the bathroom, but for - ahem, cough, cough - PERSONAL reasons, I did not want anyone I knew to be in the bathroom while I was in there. So I thought, "no problem, I'll just go down one more floor to go to the bathroom." I work on the 14th floor, & I figured I'd take the stairs instead of the elevator. So, I opened the door to the stairway, let it shut behind me, and walked down to the 13th Floor.

When I got there, the door to the hallway from the stairway was LOCKED! I thought, "oh, wow. I wonder why it's locked? Maybe there's some secret government business on that floor. I'll just walk back up to 14." So, I walked up to 14, and....guess what happened...

Did you guess?

Yup! It was LOCKED! There were all these helpful signs giving the phone number for building security or maintenance, except I didn't take my phone on this bathroom trip!

I walked up to the 15th Floor, and.....

and....

IT WAS LOCKED! So, I walked up to the 16th Floor, and.......and......

IT WAS LOCKED! By that time I'd discovered there was a pattern. Yup, I'm a fast learner all righty.

So, I did what anyone else would do in the same situation. I knocked on the door. I banged & banged & banged & banged & banged & yelled "Help!" & banged & banged, & (deep breath) banged & yelled, "HELP! I'm stuck in the stairway!" and

and

and

Someone FINALLY came to my rescue! This nice guy (a Moby doppelganger if I ever saw one), opened the door & I said breathlessly, "Thank you! Thank you so much!" He said, "I could barely hear you from my office...." As he's looking at me quizzically like, "what the H-E-double hockey sticks were you doing in there?!" I said, "um, I work on 14 & didn't know the doors locked on you when you went into the stairway...." He said, "yeah....it's like that on all floors. It's a security thing" And I can TELL he still wants to know why I was in there! Like maybe I'm the EXACT reason for the security protocol! So, what did I say?

What?

What?

Well, I couldn't tell him the TRUTH of course! So, I said....

I said...

"I had to use the bathroom, & the one on my floor was really stinky, so I thought I could walk down another floor."

YES! That's what I said! In hindsight, I should have said that the bathroom was overflowing OR that there was a line OR, OR, OR ANYTHING else! I can't believe that was the best lie I could think of at that time!

Sheesh.

I think I need one of these: