I work in a nearly abandoned one-story office building in a nearly abandoned office park on the edge of the city where things get shipped to and fro. In between all of the bustle of the shipping industry, people who work at and/or are trying to fly out of the airport are woven in the mix. It makes for bad street traffic and a stream of cargo trucks that are always spewing chunks of scrappy loads off at my windshield on my drive to work – they have signs on the back of them that say “Stay 200 feet back – not responsible for broken windshields” and I have a sign that I try to put in my windshield that says “Trying to get to work – not responsible for being forced to call that 1-800 number to report your inconsiderate driving! Sir! (or Ma’m!)” But I might have to revise the wording because it hasn’t been that effective.
Our parking lot is really what I call a “picking lot” for people looking to pop a lock and grab a few items. My car remains untouched for some reason (maybe because the thieves can see the strongly worded sign mentioned above? I don’t know) but everyone else has had luggage, and license plates, and ipods stolen right in broad daylight. That leads me to believe it is our secretary or the sixty-year-old director of the non-profit looking for kicks (did you all hear that This American Life about Senior Citizens that steal because the world has forgotten about them?), but the police have other theories.
Anyway – up until a few months ago we were the only business in the building. Times were tuff and no one could afford to rent office space even in the broken windshield side of town. Every once in a while we would get real life grifters coming in trying to run something like a fake UPS pick-up or purse repair scam. One of my coworkers had her pocketbook stolen while everyone sat at their desks.
Our safety and security expert came in from DC (we are an international non-profit) and determined that we should lock our doors at all times, including the doors to the lobby and to the bathrooms in the lobby. He also told us, an office full of ladies, that we should not hang out at our cars after dark or wait outside of the office, in the abandoned office park after dark.
“Buddy system?” I asked and he said, “Exactly.” And I said, “Covered that in ‘82 -- got anything else new developing in DC?”
I mean we already have the office-park security guy in the blue and white 1994 Ford Ranger coming around every five hours with a cell phone flashlight and a rolled-up newspaper – we don’t need some fancy guy trained in security systems and three-button suits coming in and telling us we don’t know how to look out for each other.
So, even though I’m not sure how it cuts down on petty vehicle theft, everything is locked now from the front to the back, if you leave the office you take your keys. To use the restroom, we have two choices, both of them are out in the lobby. The lobby to this place is actually quite incredible and must have been something in the seventies (or any other time there was more than one building occupant): Wide open walkway, big, square terra-cotta colored tiles, palms and ferns, square couches, skylights – the whole thing. One bathroom is the regular one-user bathroom and looks like your standard every-one-accessible situation. The other bathroom is tucked back in the far corner of the lobby near an ‘exit’ and across from a janitorial closet/wash basin and has a heavy wood door, a large old-fashioned sitting area with a dusty rose love seat and brown easy chair, and three miniature beige stalls. I titled this the Murder Bathroom for obvious reasons (isolation and proximity to exit, multiple hiding places, and industrial washbasin).
The title caught on and soon all of my professional colleagues were saying, “Hey – do you have the key to the murder bathroom?” “I need the key to the murder bathroom” and we would laugh and say “oh we could totally get murdered in that bathroom.” and “if I was going to murder someone I would murder them in that bathroom” and “look out so-and-so might come in there and murder you”. And that is how we dealt with our uncertainty about our safety and the economy and our job performance (and how I dealt with my authority/boss-murder fantasies – but I digress) but nevertheless we were dealing! Us, standing alone in this nearly abandoned office building in a nearly abandoned office park.
And then someone moved in next door. A Charter School (just the offices – not that actual school). Before you think “oh god, I can’t think of anything worse.” I have to tell you – you probably can’t think of anything worse. So this charter school moves in and they bring a decent sized-staff. We watched them move in and every time another woman came up to the door with her pencil and paper and desk trinkets we’d think “they better stay away from the murder bathroom” and out secretary/operations coordinator says, “We are the only ones with keys to that bathroom” – and we believe her.
The principal comes next door and introduces himself and tells us that the school is “all technological – no paper!” and that on weekends real professionals come “from the entertainment industry to teach filmmaking skills!” and I think “oh gawd – filmschool is the new beauty school” and two of us are impressed that they don’t have any paper but the rest of us are like, “We are too old for that shit – you know who isn’t using paper either? The fools that keep jacking our cars out in the parking lot!!”
So we don’t get too friendly with the Charter School people. They drop by every once in a while saying that they would like to work with us and we are all like, “We are an internationally recognized non-profit with proven results-based outcome-driven performance measures blahdittyblah - why would we want to work with you and your two-bit cover for free production equipment?”
Day by day the sheer amount of females using the regular rest room starts to take its toll. The toilet seat gets loose, the door gets locked from the inside for no reason, the sink overflows, and there are never any paper towels. We determine that the Charter School women are fat-ass toilet-seat-breaking-heathens and we start to exclusively use the murder bathroom. From time to time one of us tries the other bathroom and comes back with a horror story. So for the most part we stick with what is rightfully ours and things are ok.
And then yesterday, as I was leaving the murder bathroom, and I mean right as my hand went to touch the knob, I hear a key in the lock, I am speechless, dumbfounded, I don’t know if it is actually the person that has been observing us and somehow, at night when no one else was there, broke into our offices and made an imprint of the key, and was waiting for the right moment – the late afternoon when everyone is sleepy from Arby’s and work –to come and finally commit murder – I mean OF COURSE the murderer would have a key – because he could let himself in and get busy murdering while the only known keys to the place are locked inside with the victim and the murderer – so he could remain there until everyone left for the day and then dispose of the body probably with a very strong acid from the janitors closet - it is perfect! So that’s where my head is at so I don’t quite say anything but I push the door open and I immediately see that it is one of the Charter School women! The same one that I have seen standing outside talking on her cell phone with her thong tangled up in the back belt-loops of her jeans. I say, rather meekly, “oh – sorry” even though she is the one that should be explaining howtheF she got a key to our private sanctuary – but she doesn’t hear me because she is on her cell phone but she looks up, sees me and SCREAMS. A Bloooooodyblood screeeeeeech completely out of proportion to any kind of danger any human has ever been in. In fact I am sure there have been people that haven’t screamed as loud after being pushed off a skyscraper. And it scared the piss out of me and I got super mad about it because my heart nearly exploded.
When I got back to the office the secretary asked me “Are you alright? I actually thought you were getting murdered in the murder bathroom.” and I asked her if she heard that and she is like “uh yeah” and I asked her how one of the charter school people got a key and she said “I don’t know. I thought we were the only ones with the key.” And then I realized that our secretary is one of those people that makes stuff up and presents it as fact. And I realized that I can’t trust anyone. Not the people driving the cargo trucks on Airways Blvd, not the DC security, not my officemate, not the people pretending to trim the bushes out side, or the kids making sandwiches in the officepark Subway sandwich shop, and certainly not that secretary. She belongs with the liars and the screamers next door, she belongs in one of their movies.
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