suburban legends
Aug. 21st, 2003 08:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
godreamThey say that up in the rafters far above blue hall, there lies a hidden catwalk, used by wise old janitors and technicians to maintain the school, a source of infinite potential for the prankster clever enough to initiate himself into its secrets.
They're wrong. I'd try to keep up the atmospheric tone here, but I think I killed it at "wise old janitors" anyways. So much for that.
Still, it was kind of cool when yesterday, me, the two computer techs (Dave and Dave), and the other kid who works at school this summer, went with our trusty ladder and even more trusty screwdrivers to check out the truth of this tale. The first access location was in a room that had yet to be reoccupied by its usual tenants for this school year. It was there we discovered that the six-foot ladder was insufficient for anything but taking out the screws that held the access panel in place, so the Daves went over to the library to get the eight-footer while Jeremy (the other kid) and I took turns standing on the top of the ladder where it says "Do Not Stand Or Sit" and poking our heads up to see the very little we could from that vantage point. Even when the bigger ladder arrived, it was pretty disappointing. Pipes and vents and nothing to stand on, really, unless you fancied falling through into the METCO office. After reattaching the panel, we left.
But we quested on, into the Language Office where the teachers had begun to filter back in after summer break. (We hadn't a clue what we'd say if a teacher wanted to know what we were up to up there. The ludicrously obviously untrue "nothing"? Or perhaps the magic word, "networking"...) And so we set up Trusty Ladder Number Two, climbed to the top -- OK, climbing to the top was not a "we" thing, it was a Dave thing, because if we'd all climbed at once the ladder would have either collapsed or fallen over. But still. And so the panel was opened and we beheld...
...another whole lot of nothing. A huge silver-gray air duct rose before us, effectively blocking any progress that way. With the help of the coolest flashlight I've ever seen in my life (since the single window was obscured with the dust of ages -- probably literally decades) we could dimly perceive what we thought might be the fabled catwalk a little ways off. Jeremy boosted himself up and checked it out. To our disappointment, it was more of a platform than any kind of path, leading nowhere but to a bunch of controls of some sort. So much for that. The only way to forge onward would be to risk the four-inch i-beams that spanned the expanse of ceiling before us. Since there didn't appear to be anything worth forging to, we opted out of that adventure.
So it wasn't really quite worth it, except as an amusing waste of an afternoon we didn't really have anything else to do in anyways, but at least now I know. And judging by the amount of dust up there, nobody else except us has a clue. So I think what we really have to do here is come up with a story together and make sure we can all back up the complete line of bull we'll tell easily-impressed friends. You can climb up there and spy on the administration! The cafeteria ladies keep bodies up there! It's a portal into Middle-Earth! That's where the teachers put their own copies of Cliff's Notes so they don't have to read the books and nobody knows! I tell you, the possibilities are endless. :P
By the way, the reason I'm writing about this rather than anything I did today is that I didn't do anything today, really. Tested a bunch of printers, played with Adobe InDesign, then watched Die Hard. (Good movie, by the way -- I'd never seen it before, though I do realize everyone else in the known universe has, and both the sequels to boot.) Oh yeah, and then got a ride to Workplace #2 in Dave's red Miata, which was pretty neat. But nothing I can squeeze a page or two of purple prose out of like I can from yesterday's entertaining events, so... :)
They're wrong. I'd try to keep up the atmospheric tone here, but I think I killed it at "wise old janitors" anyways. So much for that.
Still, it was kind of cool when yesterday, me, the two computer techs (Dave and Dave), and the other kid who works at school this summer, went with our trusty ladder and even more trusty screwdrivers to check out the truth of this tale. The first access location was in a room that had yet to be reoccupied by its usual tenants for this school year. It was there we discovered that the six-foot ladder was insufficient for anything but taking out the screws that held the access panel in place, so the Daves went over to the library to get the eight-footer while Jeremy (the other kid) and I took turns standing on the top of the ladder where it says "Do Not Stand Or Sit" and poking our heads up to see the very little we could from that vantage point. Even when the bigger ladder arrived, it was pretty disappointing. Pipes and vents and nothing to stand on, really, unless you fancied falling through into the METCO office. After reattaching the panel, we left.
But we quested on, into the Language Office where the teachers had begun to filter back in after summer break. (We hadn't a clue what we'd say if a teacher wanted to know what we were up to up there. The ludicrously obviously untrue "nothing"? Or perhaps the magic word, "networking"...) And so we set up Trusty Ladder Number Two, climbed to the top -- OK, climbing to the top was not a "we" thing, it was a Dave thing, because if we'd all climbed at once the ladder would have either collapsed or fallen over. But still. And so the panel was opened and we beheld...
...another whole lot of nothing. A huge silver-gray air duct rose before us, effectively blocking any progress that way. With the help of the coolest flashlight I've ever seen in my life (since the single window was obscured with the dust of ages -- probably literally decades) we could dimly perceive what we thought might be the fabled catwalk a little ways off. Jeremy boosted himself up and checked it out. To our disappointment, it was more of a platform than any kind of path, leading nowhere but to a bunch of controls of some sort. So much for that. The only way to forge onward would be to risk the four-inch i-beams that spanned the expanse of ceiling before us. Since there didn't appear to be anything worth forging to, we opted out of that adventure.
So it wasn't really quite worth it, except as an amusing waste of an afternoon we didn't really have anything else to do in anyways, but at least now I know. And judging by the amount of dust up there, nobody else except us has a clue. So I think what we really have to do here is come up with a story together and make sure we can all back up the complete line of bull we'll tell easily-impressed friends. You can climb up there and spy on the administration! The cafeteria ladies keep bodies up there! It's a portal into Middle-Earth! That's where the teachers put their own copies of Cliff's Notes so they don't have to read the books and nobody knows! I tell you, the possibilities are endless. :P
By the way, the reason I'm writing about this rather than anything I did today is that I didn't do anything today, really. Tested a bunch of printers, played with Adobe InDesign, then watched Die Hard. (Good movie, by the way -- I'd never seen it before, though I do realize everyone else in the known universe has, and both the sequels to boot.) Oh yeah, and then got a ride to Workplace #2 in Dave's red Miata, which was pretty neat. But nothing I can squeeze a page or two of purple prose out of like I can from yesterday's entertaining events, so... :)
