These are great. Keep unloading on us......and don't forget the gaffers tape.
Ah! Another memory cometh! It's about tape!
It was 1995(?) and I was in trouble. As punishment, I was told to help the EPF and Renos do HVAC work in the ceilings of AOLA. Up into the dark space in the ceiling I went. I was only about 130 pounds at the time, so I could clamber along the heating ducts instead of climbing up and down a ladder every time I needed to move.
It was actually one of the most peaceful times I had in the Sea Org. I was pretty much given a bucket of grey sealant goop, a paint brush and roll of metal tape - as an aside - that metal tape kicks fuckin ass! I stole like 4 rolls for use in my dorm! Cabinet repair you know... Oh, and that grey stuff? we called it Smegma
and if you got it on you, it never
ever came out. Heaven help you if you got it somewhere you had hair!
Anyway, I was given that stuff and let loose. I spent more than a week up there, only coming down to eat, sleep and muster. It was awesome!
Until....
Oh crap I forgot his name: late-forties, pot-belly, long greasy reddish-blond hair, nasty tobacco-stained teeth, and one of those back-support girdles. Probably from southern Texas. Renos. Anyway, this guy really enjoyed needling me with gay jokes. Creepy and scary to say the least.
<shudder> Back to the dramatic tension.
Until....
One night, most everyone had already left. It was about midnight. I was wedged up above the central heat exchanger (A big metal box where all the ducts connect up to the main heater). It was dark as hell, and I had wedged my front half in between the pipes so I was upside down taping the underside of the aforementioned tangle of pipes...
I hear a noise above and behind me, "Hey, Wirestripper...how you plannin' on gettin' outta there?" It was Creepy Renos Guy. I twisted my neck around so I was looking up my right side and saw him veritably looming over me. I started to try and wedge myself further down behind the exchanger.
He crawled closer. "You know what I'm gonna do to you boy? I'm gonna flip you over, shave your ass, plant some boobs on yer back...and you can be mah bitch"
I freaked. I manged to weasel my way through to the bottom of the tangle...unfortunately, the only thing below me was the ceiling....and below that...the floor.
I remembered this fact about halfway through those cheapo pressed cardboard ceiling tile...taking the express-elevator called gravity.
Remember though, I am a lucky fellow, and landed juuuust off-center in one of those ugly-ass green AOLA couches....not a scratch!
All I can hear is Creepy Renos Guy laughing his ass off in the ceiling above me. Bastard!