My campus is crazy about security. Every door key has to be signed for by a slew of high-ranking administrators, every student file has to be locked away when not being physically handled, phone numbers have to be shredded after use, campus mail can't be trusted with signed forms, and so on. My office keys, triple-signed by the powers that be and mortgaged against smallish parts of my soul, will cost me nearly a thousand dollars in fines if I ever lose them. I keep them locked away and sometimes wake up in a cold sweat wondering if they're safe (my precious).
The dilemna goes something like this: I only have one pair of nice-enough-for-work pants with pockets. I can carry the key to the file cabinets around my neck but don't fancy doing so with my entire key ring (I've tried; it's noisy and annoying and whacks me in the solar plexus when I walk). So there's one day a week, or maybe two if I'm feeling rebellious, where I can carry my keys on my person and three or four days where I have to shut them away and walk around without them.
This is, of course, devastatingly secure. If the department secretary doesn't have her keys on her, nobody can jump her in the hallways of the education building and steal them. Nobody can slip their hand into her jeans pocket unbeknownst to her and run off down the stairs cackling and waving the precious unlockerizers in their grubby fists.
Indeed, if the department secretary leaves to go to the bathroom and gets attacked by shape-shifting aliens who kill her and take on her appearance in order to walk nonchalantly back to her desk five minutes later, we will all breathe a sigh of relief when we learn that they've been foiled by the very secure expedient of a sweet and innocuous professor of education quietly locking the office door so that the shape-shifting alien secretary finds itself stuck in the hallway fruitlessly turning the door handle over and over and thinking of her (I mean its) keys and wallet and cell phone and bus pass all locked snugly in the file cabinet behind the impassable door.
Mind, the shape-shifting alien knows where the other set of keys is, and can sprint to the appropriate office and get them and let itself in without arousing anyone's suspicions, so even with the efforts of that heroically security-minded faculty member there's a good chance we'll all get murdered in our beds yet. End on a happy note, that's what I say.
Posted by dianna at August 21, 2007 05:41 PMAnd what if the shape-shifting alien turns its hand into a key? Sounds like there are some pretty serious flaws in the security protocol. I bet they never ran this plan by some proper security experts.
Posted by: Ping at August 21, 2007 08:36 PMBwahahaa. You're going to end up with a goddamned belt-loop carabiner with 5000 keys on it, you know you will. Only because this will prove to be a useful projectile with which to brain would-be zombie/alien/nefarious human intruders as you round the corner from the bathroom.
Posted by: katie at August 22, 2007 02:33 AMPing, I'll let you head the team doing the proper security review of the Dianna's Office Secure Door Transfer Protocol, if and only if you promise to keep your pinky finger extended at all times while working. And sip your tea, don't slurp it. Sit up straight. Say "sir" and "madam" and "beg pardon" and "at your service". Cross your ankles. Haxx0rz should be seen and not heard.
Katie, a goddamned belt-loop carabiner with 5000 keys on it won't do me a bit of good if I don't have belt loops. I've been wearing skirts to work because it's so fucking impossible for me to buy a nice, new, undestroyed pair of jeans that I can wear with my collared shirts to look moderately unslovenly. I was just explaining this last night: I have earth-shatteringly amazing luck with free piles and secondhand stores, and no luck at all with regular retail stores where I'm willing to spend money on respectable-looking new clothes. At the former, slick articles just leap into my arms and I wind up looking effortlessly fabulous. At the latter, no matter how much money I spend nor how long trying things on, I wind up looking like I'm dressed in other people's clothes. I don't fucking understand it and it isn't helping me get dressed for work.
Posted by: Dianna at August 22, 2007 08:57 AMI failed to understand that the problem is with the pants, not with the keys. I tried Googling for "nice work jeans pile" for you in case I could turn up a list of free piles where people are dumping such items near you, but instead I turned up a garment factory in Thailand located in what appears to be a replica of my old apartment building and named, without apparent irony, the Nice Work Textile Factory. Perhaps you could see if there are any sweatshops in your neighborhood and raid their Irregular Pants bin. With your luck, you'd come out looking like a million bucks.
Posted by: katie at August 22, 2007 10:21 AMI forgot to mention the other problem, which is that my sudden adoption of the bicycle as my transportation of choice is apparently leading to a reduction in the size of my ass. Twice now my sexiest (free-pile) pants have come out of the dryer insufficiently sexy and indeed increasingly baggy. It's wholly unfair -- I pick up a sexy hipster habit and don't get to be all snugly bedenimed doing it. I should file a complaint, or maybe just eat more soy cream.
Posted by: Dianna at August 22, 2007 10:43 AMI suppose there could be sweatshops. Industrial Northwest Portland is a little weird. I'll take a look and see if I can see any dimly lit rooms full of haggard workers on their 30th consecutive sewing hour.
Man! The Nice Work Jeans Pile! That's pure genius, that is! Maybe I can be the community-minded Portlander to start it, with my sadly unfitting sexy jeans.
Posted by: Dianna at August 22, 2007 10:47 AMNice Work Jeans Pile. Everything's free (if you can get it).
Posted by: katie at August 22, 2007 11:19 AMGROOOOAAAAANNNNN.
That was a good one. Nice work, jeans pile.
Posted by: Dianna at August 22, 2007 01:39 PM