THE STINK. A modern day office horror story.

[Smelly old Hob]

Brace yourselves for a long read.


So I was sitting here at work, which is network support for a fairly large healthcare company. There are about 700-800 people in the building where I work. Even though I don't know everybody, I know a fair few since my job brings me into contact with a lot of them. That doesn't have anything to do with what just happened, I guess it was just something I needed to share. There you have it.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, sitting at my desk. A guy over the cubicle wall from me had spent the morning telling everyone (almost literally - I swear I heard him tell the story more than 20 times) that Christopher Walken was running for president. Okay, that's not anywhere near literally. I apologize for the misuse of the language. Expect more later on, professor. Jeez, that's annoying when you do that.

Rather than getting irritated when he told the story again, I and a couple of other nearby cubicle dwellers made a little game where we had to take a slug of coffee every time he said "Walken", "Chris", "Christopher", or "cowbell". I know, pretty hardcore. What can I say? The bigwigs frown on drinking games at 9:30AM. At least among the non-execs. Given the decisions passed down around here, it's clear that there's been some heavy drinking among the higher ups.

Since I've had quite a bit of coffee, I've been in the restroom quite frequently (actually, I took the break between posts to go again, but to a different restroom on the other side of the building, because I don't want to go back into the near restroom just yet.) The second to last time I was in the restroom (the near one, that is, so, three potty breaks ago total for those of you keeping count), I was at the urinal writing my name in pee on the back of the porcelain, when I notice a God-awful stench emanating from one of the stalls. Not the first time this has happened, but this was something really special. And by "special" I mean, "nearly vomit inducing".

Momentarily I start hearing a low moaning sound. Obviously a man's voice, nothing supernatural, mind you. But you generally don't hear someone getting that much into their poops in this button-down atmosphere. The moaning occasionally turned into a hoarse grunting, which was followed by the requisite fart (some stunning in their length and depth, others equally beautiful in their brevity), and almost all of those accompanied with an alarming amount of splashing, as if someone was dumping a pitcher of creamed corn into the toilet. For all I know, that is exactly what was happening, though a pitcher was probably not involved.

This stink was something else, I tell you. I once had an occasion to visit an outhouse at a landfill, and that place had nothing on this. The stink was like a presence in the room, which is impressive considering the size of the restroom and the quality of the ventilation therein.

I finished up, considered leaving without washing my hands to just get the hell out of there, but decided to stay and wash because I HAVE to wash my hands, and didn't want to have to go to the other restroom on the other side of the building just to wash my hands.

As I was washing my hands, the guy in the stall starts this blood-chilling scream/gasp thing, along with heavy breathing, like, "AAHHHGGHH... *****, ****" *gasp*, "****ing *****" *gasp*

Real low-pitched like, not a scream, I guess, but it was loud, like someone in some writhing agony. I started thinking that maybe it was someone having sex in there, but it would have to be some pretty kinky weird stuff going on in there. There are quite a few uptight people around here, so I wouldn't be surprised, but, again, I only heard the guy. So he was taking care of himself then. Still, the ability to multitask those two activities is impressive, and I'd imagine quite cathartic.

Then the pounding began. This guy must have been slamming his fist against the side of the stall, all while making this "NNNNNNGGGGGHHHH!!" sound, accompanied by the sound of what could only be boulders being dropped into a lake. This was not the dripping ooze that I heard just moments earlier. This is like old-school Jared cannonballing into a pool. So I'm in this clean tiled room, water running on my hands, surrounded by this stench, having heard what can only be the worst bowel movement anyone has ever experienced in the history of the universe, pierced to my very sould by this inhuman wailing, then this pounding and gigantic splashing begins. I forgo the paper towels and hightail it out of there. As my hand grabs the door handle, all the sounds stop and there's this sort of soggy sounding "URK!" from the stall. I yank the door open and charge out. As the door is shutting behind me I hear the unmistakable sound of vomit hitting a tile floor.

I fight mightily against my own gag reflex, a considerable battle considering all that had recently assaulted my senses. I paused to catch my breath a little way down the hall from the bathroom, then realize I'm still breathing the stink and begin my battle anew. I walk queasily away from the foul odor and turn the corner. Here I start to feel better. I go to the break room and get myself some water. It was at this point that I realized that I was slipping from the past tense into the present, so I apologized to the people reading my account of events and went on.

As it would happen, that was not the last time I had to use the bathroom (which, if you've been paying attention so far, you'd know that I've gone again at least twice since that experience.

The coffee and probably some of the water had worked its way through me (not sure on the water. How long does it take to make its way through the body?) and I had to go again. I walked down the hall to the near bathroom and noted that the stink was still lingering in the air. I'm a lazy person, so I figured I could brave the stench rather than walking all the way across the building or go upstairs. When I pushed open the door, I regretted my decision.

I was met at the door by a wall of funk. Not a giant James Brown, Godfather of Soul, made out of a brick and singing "I Feel Good", but a scent that brought tears to my eyes and drained some of my will to live. It was as if I was swimming through a lake of ass. I will attempt to characterize the smell, but please understand that there is no way I can do this putrid nasal assault justice. There was, of course, the scent of poop, but mixed in with that there was onion, garlic, cabbage, corned beef, some mossy undertones, probably some peppers, and mustard. Actually, that sounds kind of like a sandwich. A poop sandwich. Watch for it at the McDonald's near you.

You may be asking yourself at this point, "Slacker, why didn't you leave already?" To which I would reply, "First of all, it's Bob - Mister Bob to you. Second, I will reiterate - lazy." A little (read: a horrendous amount) isn't too bad as long as those sounds aren't going on anymore. And I'd been up the steps once today to explain to someone that their new laptop was, indeed, the entire computer, and that the "box" that they had before was the old computer and the laptop had far more power than the old one and was much more portable (but that's another story. I digress. Apologies, again.)

I will take a moment here to describe the layout of the bathroom, to help you all picture it better. First, note that all of the facilities are on the same wall. The door, the sinks, the urinals, and the stalls are all on the same side, with a long blank wall on the other side. You walk in the front door and there's a dividing wall separating the entry from the rest of the bathroom on the right. Next is a little space with the sinks and towel dispensers, separated from the rest of the restroom by another dividing wall. After this second wall are two urinals, two regular sized stalls, and then the handicapped stall.

So, when I first walked in the restroom (remember, half an hour later!), I was immediately nostril-raped by this abhorrence, but figured hey, gotta go, gotta go right now. I'll stop by the urinal, wash up, and be out in no time. So I clawed my way through the stink and turned the corner around the dividing wall, starting to unzip, and I stopped dead in my tracks at what I saw.

Clearly the odiferous offal turned back any potential pee-ers before me, because if anyone had seen this, they surely would have called at least medical emergency services, and quite possibly law enforcement. I had nearly forgotten what I had been through, thinking it had been merely an amusing if especially enthusiastic bowel movement, and dismissed it once I had got past it. Now the experience was again crystal clear, and I was very uneasy with the latest development of this situation.

If it can be believed from all my prior talk about the unpleasant aroma that penetrated every corner of the bathroom, I forgot all about it for a couple of moments. My spit dried up instantly and I could feel my pulse pounding in my head. My fingers were tingling as I felt a strong fight-or-flight sensation.

The white tile that I could see under the wall of the toilet stall was covered by a puddle of what looked a lot like blood.

I'm not a medical expert, as I said. I work for a healthcare company, but as one of the network/server/PC support team. I sliced my finger open once and dripped a good deal of blood on the floor and had to clean it up much later when it had dried, but I can't really remember what it looked like fresh, as I was too busy noticing that I could see part of my skeleton in real life to note the viscosity and other properties of a puddle of blood. And it wasn't nearly this much.

As I said. It appeared to be blood. Parts of it were a bright red color, other areas (mostly near the edges and the splash marks) were a darker, kind of maroon color. There were large chunks in the puddle, as well, and the splashy spots that I just mentioned, as if the... whatever... hit the floor at great force or from a bit of height. I remembered hearing what sounded like vomit, and this must've been it, but it seemed like an awful lot to come from one person. Then I remembered the time we went to the circus as a kid and I filled up on popcorn and those little orange candy peanut things and cotton candy and soda. I was amazed by how much junk came out of me that day, and I was just a little kid then. A grown up, presumably, could make a lot more come out.

There was also another mark of a splash closer to the toilet, darker in color, fairly obvious what it was. Something had splashed or otherwise exploded out from the toilet. It was on the basin of the toilet, on the tiles around it, on the shoes and pants that were still resting on the floor of the stall. I had been taking in this spectacle for what seemed like fifteen minutes, was probably more like thirty seconds, and I just now realized that the guy with the intestinal distress was still in the stall, and not in good shape, to say the least.

I noticed something shining on the floor, right under the partition wall of the stall. A wedding band, speckled with congealed burgundy colored crust. Plain, gold, with an indent in the middle separating two halves. Crazy thoughts started popping up all over the place in my head. I thought of the symbolism of the ring. Two separate sections, joined in unity, each complete by itself, but something more together. A third life created from nothing but the two that preceeded it.

I thought of calling out to see if the guy needed help, which I know was idiotic considering the state he was in, but when confronted with such distressing images, my mind tried to rationalize everything as all right. I then saw, dangling just below the side of the partation, just over where the ring had dropped, a hand, limp, lifeless, caked in blood or whatever ungodly mess this was. I imagined a body slumped against the wall in the stall, and suddenly had to pee more than ever in my life.

My hands were still on my zipper, I was still in mid stride, I could feel the grimace of revulsion on my face, and I swear I felt my heart start beating again. I unzipped and started peeing while still getting into position. While I micturated (I just wanted to say that, don't know if it's the correct use, but I heard it said by Mr. Lebowski (not the Dude) in "The Big Lebowski", and thought it would fit here), I tried to think of anything besides the stiffening corpse not four feet away from me. I remember picturing a cute picture of a fluffy baby bunny that was posted on LUE earlier today, and the car accident that caused me to be late to work today which, while it made for a long commute because they had the freeway down to one lane, at least no one was hurt in the accident, and I though about the computer I was working on and the lifeless fingers dangling a few inches off the floor.

Now, it's an interesting thing. Have you ever had some ass try to get all clever and tell you "try not to think of a pink elephant," only to make you think of a pink elephant? I don't know what the point of such things is besides to make you feel stupid for thinking of a pink elephant. I may be taking a simple psychology demonstration out of hand, but (assuming I know the person fairly well) I usually tell them, "okay, here's one for you: try not to imagine me ****ing your mom." Usually shuts them up, and I make it better by saying, "just kidding."

Also, there are many different theories on time. One school of thought says that time is a constant, always ticking on at the same rate. That school is for idiots, since anyone who knows the basics of relativity and the properties of time knows that time can move at different rates, though it may seem constant, relatively. Here I'm getting in way over my head, as I don't really understand that much about it myself, and perhaps that's a conversation for another day on LUE. I'm not really that well versed in quantum physics or whether what I'm talking about has anything to do with quantum physics. My point is that anyone who says that time moves at a constant rate has never been in a stinking restroom trying to pee quickly a few feet away from a fresh corpse.

Sort of along the lines of the "try to imagine yourself..." thing, try sometime to make yourself pee faster than your body is willing to go. You'll find that your body will go at its own pace, and forcing it only hurts you. I don't know what I did while trying to hurry myself up, but something in my crotch hurts now that I've been able to take stock of myself.

I got close enough to finishing up and clenched myself so I could get out of there. I peed a little on the wall and my shoes, but tried to still be careful with my zipper.

When I left the bathroom, I didn't even think about washing my hands. I nearly tore the door off its hinges getting it open (and by that I mean it was in no danger of falling off the wall, but I did slam it against my leg which was somehow in the way when I tried to open it). I hurried out of there, quickly away from the kind of set aside area until I was back in the open area of cubicles and back to my cube.

That's when I started to write.

I'm going to have to come clean about a couple of things, because things have taken a weird turn and I just want to be completely honest about what's been going on around here.

First, I'm not actually a network administrator at this healthcare company. I WAS a network administrator for a much smaller company before that company was swallowed by this, much bigger company. Now and then I still say that I am in order to sound more important to myself. Really I'm more of a PC/helpdesk guy. My duties now may occasionally include light server and network work, but I'm mostly relegated to more basic app installs and troubleshooting. No offense meant to anyone who aspires to be a PC support person, but once you've felt the power of an entire network at your command, help desk feels a little weak.

I know, crawling, skin, etc.

The second thing is a little detail I omitted from one of last night's posts. I felt kind of guilty about it last night, and it's quite out of character for me, so I guess that's why I left it out, but it's actually not such a little detail. I know I just said "little detail" above, but apparently that was a lie as well. We're finding out all kinds of new information on Bob, it seems. Tell you what, bub - when you go through a day without committing some minor infraction of societal mores, you come back and get all sanctimonious on me. Until then, step off.

Where was I? Oh yes, this one issue may eat at my being in the coming days, so I'd better let you know so that you might know a bit more where I'm coming from, or what I'm dealing with. Yesterday afternoon, after I had managed to zip up my pants without major injury (after attempting to force myself to pee faster upon discovery of the body in the bathroom - just so everyone's caught up), I bolted out the restroom door as I said, but as I turned away from the urinal (towards the dividing wall between the urinals and the sinks, away from the toilet stalls), I spun a little further to my right and reached down and over before exiting.

I grabbed the dead guy's wedding band.

It's kind of bizarre, but you know that guy who kept talking incessantly yesterday about Christopher Walken's bid for the presidency in '08? Guy's name is Brodie, by the way. Well, today's Brodie's Topic Of The Day is how much the near restroom stank yesterday. He's telling everyone who will listen how bad the reek was, and how it was so bad even outside the restroom that he wasn't EVEN going to TRY to open the door, that he can't believe that no one has ever heard of a courtesy flush. He even said "it smelled like somebody died in there after taking a ****." Which startled me for a second, until I realized that he was just kidding around. If only you knew, Brodie. If only you knew.

Yes, I took the ring. I felt like Gollum or something. It was irresistible to me, like I had no choice in the matter. I don't honestly think that this is some sort of ring of power forged in the fires of some long-ago volcano with sentience enough to choose its owner in a quest to find its master, I'm just saying that I grabbed it without a second thought. There it was, crusted with blood on the bathroom floor, glinting in the fluorescents, a simple ageworn golden band with a single line running around its center, where it dropped inches below a lifeless hand. I pocketed it with a fluid graceful movement and never a backward glance, for obvious reasons.

I just received an IM from a couple of the techs here, Emily and James:

eholton: OMG whys he still talking about that sick mess?
jcrensh: It's hard to follow the rules when the subject is so disgusting
jcrensh: you know what you have to do
eholton: sigh - Im alreay totally wired - <swigs>
jcrensh: *swigs*
eholton: already, even

I'm not playing any coffee drinking games today. I'm staying away from the restrooms if at all possible. I'm already trying to figure out how to pee in a soda bottle without getting caught.

Okay, now here's the weird part. As if the rest of this was a regular day to me. Last night I had the radio on to the all news station, listening for "developing story in Eden Prairie" or "possible murder, police are on the scene," or "disgusting anal explosion leaves one revoltingly dead," but I heard nothing of the sort. Traffic was terrible. It took me an hour and a half to get home. Even though I was moving very slowly, I nearly hit the car in front of me several times because I wasn't able to focus on my driving.

Once home, I was more snappy than normal at my wife and kids. I didn't dare to tell even my wife what had happened, since I stole the guy's ring and all. After dark, I kept going to look out the window whenever a car's lights shone on our house, certain that it was the police looking for me for questioning. I watched all of the local news broadcasts, using picture-in-picture to scan through the other stations. One time when I was ducked behind the curtain looking out, my wife asked, "what is going on out there, that you keep needing to look out like that?" I said, "shhh! I'm hiding from you!" Which was weak. Cut me some slack. I'm not terribly clever to begin with, and I was a nervous wreck.

No news that night. I figured the news stations listen to police scanners, so any police action would be picked up and they'd be all over this case, but maybe people die in public restrooms all the time, and they don't cover it because people might be eating while watching the news. Then why'd we get all that coverage of Michael Jackson?

Oh, just wanted to add, after I told my wife that I was hiding from her, she didn't laugh either. She just looked at me like she was really worried about me. Very astute of her.

Today I left for work before the newspaper had arrived, and the news was busy reporting on the bombings in Baghdad and Bangaladesh. So I was going to work, not knowing if there'd be police swarming all over the place or if the office was even open today. I figured that they probably couldn't afford to be shut down for a whole day, so I drove to work like any other day.

I arrived, parked in our ramp, and walked to the building without seeing a single police officer. I said a pleasant hello to Paulie, the security guard, scanned my badge to open the main door, and went on in. I'll admit that I was a little jumpy as I ambled down the big hall past the smaller corridor that led to the restrooms. It seemed darker than normal there, foreboding, but I didn't notice the scent of either feces or corpse, so something must be different there. I wasn't going in right away, that's for sure.

I turned the corner through the opening that led to my section of the rat maze of cubicles, got to my little home away from home, and sat down, exhausted. I felt like I had run a marathon. Well, not exactly, since I'm so out of shape I'd guess the feeling I'd get if I ran a marathon would be "dead from a massive coronary", but you know what I'm saying. I had beads of sweat on my forehead, my pulse was racing, I was very VERY self conscious.

I previously mentioned that Brodie kept mentioning the funk that apparently he thought everyone wanted to talk about. That's the most that anyone mentioned about what I'd experienced. Today, rather than being annoyed by Brodie's constant blather, I listened intently, to see if anyone whispered anything about death, dead bodies, stolen rings, or police following up on forensic evidence. Nothing. A nice thing about being in a big office like this is the ease with which you can snoop on others' conversations. I grabbed a laptop and started walking around the office, stopping nearby whenever I heard people talking in hushed tones. Since no one really knows each other, no one would stop to ask me what I was doing, just standing around holding a PC. I stood near the cubicles and looked confused, like I was looking for someone. It happens a lot in these big cubicle farms.

Most conversations I heard were pretty mundane, people talking to loved ones and such. I heard one lady explaining to a kid or her husband where to look for shoes. Another conversation had a fellow arguing with his significant other about some monetary situation. A third of this sample was a lady having an extremely naughty conversation with someone involving graphic detail of a past or potential threesome on a lunchbreak. I lingered at that cube a little too long or must've been breathing heavily, because she popped her head over the wall and said, "can I help you?" I kind of moved the computer I was holding in front of me and said, "uhhhhh," (like a dumb guy trying to think of something to say quickly when caught listening in to details of a very erotic nature that he wasn't supposed to hear, "I'm looking for Tom Wopat's cubicle? Is he around here?" I don't know why I asked for the location of the original Luke Duke, but it just came out.

She just looked at me like she had just caught me peeing in her purse and said, "I never heard of him. Must be on the second floor."

I mumbled thanks and moved off towards the stairs. She was cute, too.

What the hell was my point? Somthing about boobies? Hmm... Boobies, talking, talking about boobies... Oh yeah, that's right. The bleeding crap-splattered corpse in the bathroom. I listened in to a few conversations, but no one mentioned anything remotely resembling rigor mortis.

I returned to my desk and wondered if I had imagined the whole thing somehow, some sort of hallucination that impelled me to write all day yesterday. Then I felt the weight of the ring in my pocket and remembered a stink beyond even the most creative imagination, and new that something had gone down yesterday, and even if no one else around here knew, I had to find out what had happened.

I needed to return to the restroom.


Around noon today I finally mustered up the courage to go to the restroom. That sentence reminds me of an experience from my junior high days, but that's another story altogether. Anyway, I walked very light-headedly toward the near bathroom, feeling mounting panic as I approached. I turned the corner and it was like the light had been sucked out of the world. I felt as though I was walking through pudding, my legs and arms felt like lead weights.

I forced my hands to press against the cold metal door plate, and pushed the door open. The body of an old man lay on the floor right inside the door, face down. He was balding, probably mid to late sixties, grey suitcoat, red tie sticking out from under his shoulder. His pants were filled with dried blood and caked with poo, still shoved down around his ankles. His hands were splayed on the clean tile, and I noticed that his left-hand ring finger had been cut off down to the bloody knuckle. I tried to scream, but I only heard a shaky whistling noise emanating from my throat. the world went temporarily black and I staggered, reaching for the wall, flailing. I lost my balance and slipped down the wall, clawing for purchase, finding none.

I was fighting a losing battle with gravity, dancing with physics, about to be close enough to kiss a cadaver.

I don't know how long I lay on the bathroom floor, but the cool tiles pressed against my cheek, combined with the return of circulation to my upper extremities, woke me up. I was disoriented for a second as I opened my eyes. The light was dazzlingly bright, shining off the immaculately clean tiles -

Then it struck me - holy ****! Someone removed a dead body while I was passed out!

I gave my head a little cleansing shake. No, more likely, with all of my senses strung out in anxiety, I hallucinated an incredibly vivid image of what I half-expected to see. There was no body with a severed finger, no naked old man's ass mooning the ceiling, no filthy pants.

*pauses here so that people can post their responses of EXPECT'D*

A quick self-inventory told me that, in addition to my pulled pee-clenching muscle (from trying to pee quickly and/or stop early), a banged-up right knee (slamming the door into it when trying to leave), I now had what would likely be a decently sized welt growing on my cheek. With adrenaline still coursing through my system, I slowly and stealthily (I don't know why stealthily, but I was walking in a very tactical-espionage manner. I didn't want the dead guy to hear me coming, I guess) made my way to the scene of the crime/poop. As I approached I saw that there was no sign from this angle of any of the mess I saw the other day. No blood puddle, no mucked-up shoes, no dangling hand. I still needed to make completely sure of what had happened.

I stood in front of the door for a full minute. It was unlocked, but the door was almost closed completely. I breathed a quick, shivering sigh and pressed my hand against the door.

Of all the things I was bracing myself for, nothing could have prepared me for what I saw when the door opened.

There, standing on the toilet seat in black tabi, armed with shuriken and in full gi, was a silent assassin, a ninja. I saw a blur of movement on the hand holding the throwing stars, and felt a sudden wind whoosh by my face as a sword swung down inches in front of me. I heard the clink of something striking the sword and then the thud of the shuriken embedding into the drywall behind me. All of this happened so quickly, I never had time to react. The ninja drew his sword and swung at me. Again, just as quickly, a second sword saved my life by deflecting the glinting blade.

"Arrrrrr!, " cried my savior, "ye'd best be movin' more'n ye arrr, if'n ye hopes te still be standin' in the morrow!"

A pirate in tattered clothes, complete with hook hand and eye patch, faced off with the ninja. The ninja, with reflexes like a... ninja... took in the situation and started to advance on the pirate. The two were blocking my way to the door, I had no choice but to back into the corner farthest from my exit. I started to look for a vent or any other form of escape, despite the fact that there was no way I'd ever be able to squeeze my mass into any sort of duct.

The sound of the blades crashing against each other and the walls was formidable in the enclosed space. I was certain that someone would come in at any moment, just to investigate the noise.

At first, I thought that the two were equally matched, but as I witnessed the battle, it became evident that the pirate was in well over his head. He had walked the plank into a see that was swimming with ravenous ninja sharks. The ninja had the pirate backed into the far corner, near the door to the hallway. Unlike a scripted and coreographed swordfight in a movie, this was far more utilitarian, and more quickly brutal. In the end, the ninja was able to move the pirate's sword to the side and plunge his sword into the pirate's chest. The pirate looked at me with the eyes of an old man who's been unable to keep continent, and said, "Matey...", and collapsed to the floor.

The ninja turned toward me and started cautiosly advancing across the bathroom, which was ridiculous, since he should have been able to know that the only danger I posed was that I might vomit in terror on his tabi.

Suddenly, the door burst open and scores of pirates came charging in, all shouting "ARRRRR!!!!!" The ninja, realizing he was outnumbered, threw something on the floor and disappeared in a puff of smoke.

The pirates halted mid-charge and looked disappointed to have missed out on a good blood-letting. Then they saw me standing there, and put their swords down. The captain, obvious by his hat, stepped forward to the front of the motley bunch, and said, "It will be an honor to serve ye, sire." And he bowed deeply. All the other pirates followed suit.

That last post is to make up for the disappointment of what I really found in the toilet stall. I honestly don't know what I expected to see, though I'm fairly certain that I expected neither pirates nor ninjas. I am a little ashamed to admit that I was disappointed to find nothing in the stall. Frankly, I was astonished to find nothing there. Every last surface was polished clean. They must have used some hard-core solvents to clean the grout, but I'd guess the custodial staff at this place has all the good stuff.

The toilet was shining, the grout was pearly, the tile and walls was spotless. I checked the seams where the walls met, and they had even cleaned in there. There wasn't a spot on the bolts holding the toilet to the floor, or in the space inside the door's lock. I quickly looked up, thinking surely they had not thought to clean the ceiling tiles, and something must've splashed up there, but there was nothing there, either.

I shook my head to myself and backed out of the stall, amazed and uneasy. The whole thing just wasn't right. The ring in my pocket proved the situation true, but what I was seeing was a denial of that reality. I turned to the door, still looking at the floor for any evidence. There was none to be seen. I finally looked up as I headed toward the door and saw a man standing in the doorway, watching me intently.

It was the CEO of the company, Robert Hodgson. I was very startled to see anyone there in those circumstances, let alone the chief exec, who usually was locked in his dimly-lit office int he executive suite, and who never used the "public" washroom, preferring to take care of his bodily eliminations in the Executive Washroom, presumably.

I stopped suddenly and sort of tripped over my own feet, stumbling forward a couple of steps before gaining my balance again. I laughed stupidly. He smiled back patronizingly. "Uhhh, " I said, with as much intelligence as I could muster, "back to it." Good cover, I thought. I stepped over to the sink and washed my hands, not knowing if he had been watching me long enough to know that I hadn't been remotely close to the toilet. I didn't dare look in the mirror to see if he was still standing there, but I could feel his gaze on my back. I finished washing up. "Back to it, " I said again. Good one! If it seemed smart once, twice will make it seem twice as smart! I walked towards him again, half expecting him to pull a gun on me and blast me right there, so weird was this encounter. He kept on smiling that smug grin and said, "back indeed. Idle hands, you know." and barked a quick lunatic cough/laugh sound. He held the door open for me.

I stepped out and the door closed behind me - he didn't follow me out.

What the **** was that all about?

There has still been nothing on the news about this, which is very troubling to me. I've looked through both yesterday's and today's newspaper, with no reports even vaguely hinting at such an odd occurrence. Maybe it was too small an event to be reported in the newspaper - certainly they don't report about every death in the area, but I'd expect that there'd be some sort of buzz about it around the office by now. The only mention so far is Brodie's comments about it the other day, and nothing else. Anyone in the Minnesota area, specifically the southwest metro, please keep your eyes open for any strange deaths, and post here if you see anything, including sources so that I can check it out.

About the ring. It's about time I mentioned it, since that's what's kept me from going to the authorities so far, my momentary kleptomania. I kept it in my pocket for the rest of the day the day that I found it, not even daring to take it out to rinse it off while at work. I got home, ate dinner, tucked the kids in to bed, and watched a little TV with my wife without checking the ring at all. When my wife went to bed, I said that I was going to play a little Metal Gear (Solid 3: Snake Eater) before turning in, and headed downstairs. I turned on the PS2 and TV so that there would be some sound downstairs in case she checked on me, then went out to my wood shop.

My shop's in a corner of the garage, a pretty basic setup. I've got a table saw, router table, drill press, bandsaw, miter saw, jointer, and of course a work bench. And a collection of sanders. The tools have nothing to do with the story, I just wanted to show off my impressive and very manly collection. I turned on the fluorescent light over the my workbench, then grabbed a bucket and filled it with water from the hose (we live in a townhome, so our water spigot is inside of the garage, rather than outside the house). I set the bucket under the light and dropped the ring in. I grabbed one of my stain rags and went to work, scrubbing off the crust. It was definitely blood on the ring. As soon as I took it out of my pocket, I could smell a faint coppery aroma. The crust came of pretty easily using just the rag, and I used a dentist pick to clean the indented line in around the center.

It was a standard band, yellow gold on one half, white gold on the other, divided by a thin indented line around the circumference. On the inside of the ring was some writing. It said, "Ösmo and Theresa - 5/29/29". Nothing more than that, except it was very heavy, considering its size, and was warm to the touch, despite its recent submersion in cold water.

Oh, shit. What the hell is going on? I just got an IM from Brodie. A little explanation may be needed. We use a ticket system to get the work done around here. Users with issues phone into the call center, and the call center creates a ticket describing the issue and sends to the deskside group. The tickets are assigned to a tech, who handles them in order received. Basically, that's it. Also, Brodie's the only tech who gets here as early as I do, and sometimes earlier. Here's the message I got:

bfenste: hey you got a ticket for the execs?
bfenste: hodgson was poking around your cube when I got here. Iasked if he needed something, but he said he'd just check with you later.

I've currently got NO exec tickets.

There's this guy I've been friends with since high school, "Tiny" Tyrone Lidden. He's 6'4" and must be pushing 350 pounds. I'm no small guy either, but when I'm with Ty, I look like a TIE Fighter to his Death Star. He says that he's called Tiny because he was a little baby, but I've seen his baby pictures. He looks like siamese twins who shared the same body, head, legs, and arms. He was over 10 pounds when born. I'd guess that even the sperm and ovum that formed him were visible to the naked eye. Gotta love ironic nicknames.

Anyway, Ty's mother is Jamaican and his father is Kenyan, and as their offspring, Ty's as black as a moonless midnight. Just kidding. I said that because it's cliche. He's actually toasty brown, and his family has been in this country longer than mine.

Ty always used to say, "Some serious **** 'bout to go down right here." Whenever trouble was brewing. I'm not saying he invented the phrase, it was more his catchphrase, since he was always so often around fresh brewed trouble, or at least trouble waiting in the filter for the timer to go off to start brewing. Like once, when we were at a party and he was talking with his girlfriend and his other girlfriend came in the door, he said, "B!" That's what he called me, B - short for Bob for those of you not following along. He came over and said, "B, we gotta get going, some serious **** 'bout to go down right here." He was too late that time. Catfights are cool.

Nowadays, he's got a wife and three kids, and he's mellowed a bit. He's more likely to see the misfortunes of others and say, "Mmm, ain't that a shame,"

I stick with his old catchphrase, though. Some serious **** 'bout to go down right here.

I just got a repair ticket for a guy across the building from me. The ticket didn't have much information, but that's normal for a ticket of this nature, a blue screen of death. For those of you who are fortunate enough not to know, a blue screen of death, or BSOD, is Windows' way of telling you that you're screwed, data wise. Occasionally you can recover your system, but fairly often you need to reinstall windows or even replace some hardware. The ticket had the requisite information on user's name, number, cube location, contact number, general information as to the nature of the ticket, and the following text:

"Get system from user and repair. Immediate resolution requested. Visiting exec from Atlanta office. Expedite as necessary.
Intermittent BSOD. Thinkpad is located in guest office B121.
BSOD occurs during logon script. Allows logon, stops during drive mapping. Call user with ETA when repairing. Kicks user out every 2-4 logon attempts."

I was actually glad to get a ticket on the other side of the building, because that meant I had an excuse to use the restroom on the other side of the building while still getting work done. I took care of my business, then stopped at the guest office indicated. The user wasn't in the office, but there was an IBM Thinkpad laptop, closed on the desk. I picked it up and brought it back to my cubicle to take a look.

Upon sitting down, I quickly perused the outside of the system, checking for any signs of trauma. A lot of execs fear technology, and I think that's why they seem to abuse their computers more. I didn't see any scuffs or chips or cracks, so I opened the system to start it up. A yellow post-it note was placed over the power switch. I moved the post-it aside and started the system. As the system was booting, I looked at the note. Written on it in capital letters was "READ FIRST LETTERS." With that first R written a bunch of times so it seemed darker than the others. The system booted, I logged on as the user, watched the script run, no problems. Fine, I thought. It's intermittent, I'll try it again.

Reboot, no problem. I checked email, made and saved a sample document, rebooted. No problem. Rebooted again - every 2-4 times, right? I glanced at the note again.

READ FIRST LETTERS.

I felt my mouth go suddenly dry again as my eyes widened. I thought this was just an executive reminder for when he got his laptop back. That glance at the note made me realize with sickening dread that this was actually a command written specifically to me. The capitalization, the emphasis on the first letter of the sentence, the fact that no one was in the office where I got the laptop, it all seemed insanely coincidental in my head, where paranoia had taken roost as the primary emotion lately.

With a slightly trembling hand, my heart pounding in my chest, I clicked on the ticket and looked at the text. Following the cue from the note, with the first letter of each sentence bolded, I came up with this.

GIVE
IT
BACK

I could feel my pulse rocking my head with each beat, could hear the hum of the clock on the wall ten feet away, could taste the perspiration that had suddenly sprung into the air around me. My hands suddenly felt like a pair of those novelty oversized foam "number one" hands that people wear to sporting events. Except the "number one" in this instance was the middle finger.

I heard a sharp intake of breath and jumped before realizing that the sound was my own. With that, I came back to reality and time seemed to start moving at a regular pace again. It was about 1:30PM on Friday. The rest of my work day was spent feeling like there was someone standing behind me, watching everything I was doing. Which is why I spent more time than normal looking at porn on my company computer. I figure it's a matter of time before I'm fired now, I might as well enjoy it while I'm moving down that road.

Holy ****!

I just received an IM:

dlaxing: u shud return wut doesnt belong 2 u

Damnit. Not only is someone stalking me for a stupid ring, they're sending annoying internet denizens after me.

I'm no action hero, let me tell you that. I weigh over 200 pounds, though well below 300, and (at least the last time I checked) I'm not even close to 250. I've got kids who demand some physical activity, but I can usually keep up with them. Their legs are short. Any exercise I get with them is made up for in sloth time spent playing video games. And, did I mention that I'm a computer tech? Not building a lot of muscle at the workplace, no.

Oh, and I loooooooove Lay's Kettle Cooked Jalapeno Potato Chips. Man, do I love them! Have you tried them? They're like, spicy AND salty at the same time, but not too spicy, so as not to offend my Midwestern palate. I wish I had some right now, even though it's 8:53 in the morning. Some chips, some Mountain Dew, maybe a bottle or two of beer, a pizza with pepperoni, sausage, and anchovies...

I try not to be a stereotypical fat man, I really do. Some things are in our nature, I guess.

My point (the point, man! Get to the ****ing point!) uh... did anyone else just see that? Why in hell am I swearing at myself? My point is that I've thought about it for a little while now, and I'm going to just return the ring. There's been too much freaked out stuff around this situation, and I really want to get myself uninvolved in it. I don't know if I'm going to get arrested or if they just want it back, but I've got my family to think about, and I'm sure that the people looking for this ring know where I live, since it's apparent that Hodgson is involved. Access to HR and all that.

I've given my home number and address to a trusted LUEser whom I've known for many years. He's British, just so you know (if you're reading this, change the word "chips" above to "crisps", and know that I've eaten them in the lorry, the lift, and the loo). In the event that I'm arrested and don't get a chance to talk to my wife, he'll give her a call and let her know. The plan is that if I haven't posted here in 24 hours, he'll let her know and someone will go to the police with the info I've posted here.

If things come out all right, I'll post what happened here. I'm going to the CEO's office as soon as I can muster the will to do so. Then I'll give it back.

Only one slight problem, though.

The ring's stuck on my finger...