May 30, 2009

• What A Ridiculous Day At Work (Guest Starring Baby Chipmunk)

  Remember this furry guy:
  
  

  
  
  

  Well, it looks like he either followed me back home or sent one of his friends over to harass me some more.  Lucky me, he decided to make his appearance while I was busy at work. 
  
  The following events I’m about to describe took place within 15 minutes.  I am not making any of this up (don’t think I could).

   

  To make things a little easier to visualize, I made a quick sketch of my workplace and the general path this little fella took during his 15 minutes of mayhem.
   
  

  
  

  Note:  The dotted line represents the chipmunk
  
  

  1) I’m helping a member at the front desk when I suddenly hear a yell coming from our downstairs fitness center.  Thinking it was just someone grunting loudly from lifting weights, I ignored it and kept on doing what I was doing.  Soon though, I hear shouting getting louder and louder, so I look over at the hallway to see what all the commotion was.  Behold, a tiny chipmunk comes racing up the stairway, followed by two fitness trainers trying to shoo it with some exercise equipment.  They attempted to direct it towards our exit, but as you can see the chipmunk went no where near it.  Instead, it decided to go visit the ladies’ bathroom.  Oh boy…
  
  2) Shortly after this happens, I hear a bunch of women shrieking inside the bathroom.  I didn’t want to go in there (being a guy) so I waited outside.  Eventually, the chipmunk came out and attempted to go in the men’s bathroom, but this time I was fast enough to shut the door before it could menace the men in there.  Before I had any time to plan my next move, it raced between my legs and went into our kitchen.
  
  3) It’s about this time where the trainers that were initially helping out left me because they had a class to teach, so now it was just me chasing this thing.  I decided to grab an empty drink case from our recycling bin in hopes of using it to capture that fella (hey, I thought it was a good plan at the time!).
  
  

  
  My fancy chipmunk catching device
  
  

  Alas, his agility level was much higher than mines so he easily evaded my every move.  He managed to escape the kitchen and it looked like he was going to head out the exit, but instead of making a right he made a left into the front desk area.

  
  4) He found a nice, deep corner under our desk and hid there for a few minutes.  By now, I have stirred up a lot of attention from members in the club.  I asked one of them for any suggestions on what to do.  She responded by saying “I don’t know how to catch one, but I sure know how to grill one!” and proceeded to discuss that story with another member. 

   

  Shaking my head, I went back to the matter at hand.  The chipmunk finally grew tired of staying under there and he bolted over to our lounge area.

  
   

   
  

  Shifting over to this side of our lobby
  
  

  5) There was an older man already there just watching television, oblivious to all the chaos that was going on.  I think he finally got a hint that something was going on when he saw me rushing over there with my box chipmunk capturing device in hand.  He tried to help by lifting the couches that the chipmunk kept running under.  Unfortunately, that made my job even harder because I had to stop the couches from dropping each time he lifted one.  I was SO not in the mood to clean up splatterred chipmunk today!
  
  6) After a “brief” lap around the back office, the chipmunk decided to crawl up in the files at the membership desk where our membership director was in the middle of signing up a new member.  Mind you, I was sweating profusely at this point and frantically slamming my box all over the floor.  What a great first impression for that lucky member huh?

   

  At least unlike the other women, the membership director and the new member didn’t freak out.  The director even tried to help by using her coffee cup to capture it.  I did mention this chipmunk was faster than the wind right?  Yeah, she wasn’t much help, but at least the chipmunk did take off soon after.  I was hoping it would make a left towards the exit, but you can probably guess that sadly didn’t happen.
  
  7) In the daycare center it went!  It made a pit stop at the children’s bathroom, which days before had imploded and was currently in the process of being fixed.  I tried trapping it in this stinky room, but it once again sped past me, past screaming parents, and under the child-proof doorway (oh why couldn’t it have been furry animal-proof?!).
  
  8) More screaming ensued, but funny enough it only came from all the daycare providers.  The children were having a grand old time watching this!  Some even cheered the chipmunk on and one little girl yelled at me “chipmunks are cool!  Leave him alone!”  Oh yeah, just the encouragement I needed.

   

  In the end, I finally managed to guide it out the rear exit.  I went back into the lobby, where everyone proceeded to give me a standing ovation and popped open several champagne bottles.

   

  Alright alright, perhaps that last part didn’t quite happen, but I think I deserved something like that after chasing the chipmunk around the building for 15 minutes!  I sure know this wasn’t under my job description.  Hopefully, it won’t be coming back anytime soon.
  
  Epilogue 
  
  …Or so I thought.  Later that day after I left work, I received a call from my co-worker saying that my “buddy” was back and setting camp in the back office.  I gave him some advice and wished him good luck with chasing down that speedy creature.  It’s my co-worker’s problem now =P

  • 4:36 pm
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