There’s been excitement galore around the office today – a huge new shopping center opened up nearby and the parking lot is visible from our windows, high over a typical vista of mid-American stripmalls.
We’d gotten used to seeing a giant empty lot, then a giant empty hole, then a giant empty store, and so on. This went on for almost 2 1/2 years, owing to some zoning hangup or other. Then it seemed that loading up the store and getting it stocked took forever – we got used to seeing a vast expanse of parking lot, with freshly painted spaces.
Today, there’s a giant full lot, with overflow parking in our lot. The Oscar Meyer Weiner car was there. A psychedelic RV with some sort of bug or character thing on the roof was there. We’ve been watching people jockeying for parking spaces all day and hoping to see a couple of good fights break out.
Whilst all that drama was going on (honestly – some people here spend a lot of time looking out the window), a small UFO smacked into one of the windows behind our team and shattered the outer pane of the double-pane safety glass. We assume it was a bird, but no body was found, so UFO it is. No one sits in that area, and the window was kind of behind a bank of desks. Still, it was unnerving. Everyone talked about it – “Did you hear it? I didn’t hear it.” “I did, but I didn’t know what it was.” “I didn’t, and I sit right there!”
For the record, I heard it – it went “THWOCKKK.”
One of the agents taped the area off with crepe paper and the building supe was called – we didn’t know until later that there was a very sturdy plexiglass inner pane, held in place by a very solid frame. Since we’re on a high floor, safety was a concern – especially when the guys came to remove the shattered glass (some of which would inevitably fall multiple stories to the loading dock area). By then, some proper “CAUTION” tape (available at Archie McPhees!) had been put up.
They removed the frame with the plexiglass and knocked the shattered safety glass out – using Batman-like suction cup handle doohickeys – and for a while we had an open window (floor to ceiling) with nothing to stop a jumper from pulling a “mad as hell and not going to take it anymore” swan dive.
Kind of eerie. But it was nice getting some fresh air for a change and my allergies improved temporarily – so I’m hoping for more UFOs.
