Dawn, your stories reminded me of this one, which was always one - TopicsExpress

Dawn, your stories reminded me of this one, which was always one of John and my favorites, lol. Back before they updated Takoma Park’s power grid, we would lose electricity all the time, with even moderate storms. Since we had no way of knowing how long it would be before it would come back on .. 2 minutes … 2 hours … 2 days … we still had to keep the station staffed, so the transmitter could be immediately powered back up. It was summer, and around 9 or 10 pm, and there was one staff member in the station when the power died. He was a student worker who I’ll just call “Bob”. Bob was a typical broke, grungy college guy, dressed head to toe in camouflage. He sat in the control room in the dark for awhile, and then had a brilliant idea. Why not get one of the traffic flares from the trunk of his car, and light it, so he could see things better. He didn’t have a key to the station front door, so he propped it open with a brick, and walked out to his car, got the flare and came back. He lit it as he walked into the lobby, and by the time he got back to the control room, he realized maybe it hadn’t been such a smart idea. The flare was spewing burning sparks and embers, which were raining down on the floor. So, he turned around and ran back down the hallway to toss the flare outside. (For several years, until we got new carpeting, you could follow the trail of melted carpet spots along his trail). This was back in the day when the credit union was next door, and they had an alarm system that was triggered in a power outage. Two of Takoma Park’s finest pulled up to the building just as the Bob came bursting out the station’s front door, flaming torch in hand. They drew their guns, told him to drop the flare, and all walked into the lobby. Bob didn’t have any ID, since he’d just come to work from the dorm, or any proof that he really worked there. So one cop held a gun on him, while the other started to look around the station. First Bob tried to make small talk by chatting about the cop’s gun. Told to just shut up and stand still, he started thinking. Hmmmm, he had had the front door propped open for a few minutes, while he’d gone out to his car. What is a crook HAD sneaked inside the station?! So he started directing to cops to every place he could think of in the building where someone might be hiding. Not finding anything suspicious, they finally left, and Bob was back by himself in the dark control room. But, now it seemed kind of creepy, what if the cops had missed someone hiding nearby? So, Bob locked himself in the control room, and hunkered down for the rest of his shift. But, after a while, he had to go to the bathroom. When he got back, he realized he’d locked himself out of the control room. So he stood up on the table in the studio, pushed some ceiling tiles aside, hoisted himself through the hole, and hoisted himself through the false ceiling and over the wall back in to the control room, where he huddled for the rest of the night. John bought a lot more flashlights in preparation for the next power outage.