Strange, all the other doors in the stairwell had a regular door knob, but the door to floor T has a card reader and a door knob.
“Nancy, do you still have the keycard? Oh wait, I found it, I must have put it in my pocket.”
I swipe the card past the card reader and I hear the reassuring sound of a duck quacking once again. What is it with the sound of a duck quacking and why is it reassuring. It is almost as if the designer of these security features had some sort of unhealthy obsession with ducks. Enough about ducks, I turn the doorknob and slowly open the door.
Nancy whispers “Dad, what’s in there, I can’t see a thing?”
I really can’t see much since the lights are still out and all the light I have is the glow from a bag of photoluminescent fish. I do see that it looks to be some sort of a laboratory.
“Nancy, it looks like a lab. I wonder what it is for.”
“Let’s go in and find out.”
It looks like the stairwell was definitely one of the safer places to be during the earthquake. As my eyes adjust to the simple glow of the PFL I can see that most of the bookshelves have toppled over and much of the glassware is broken. Carefully Nancy and I look around for anything that would indicate why someone would have drugged me and knocked her out. All the clues have lead us here.
“Dad, look, next to the desk, I see a fire extinguisher with a sticker on it for Rasputin’s Visionary Coffee and Tuba shop. Why would someone put a sticker for a coffee shop on a fire extinguisher?”
“Don’t forget that it is also a tuba shop!”
“Ok, why would someone put a sticker for a coffee and tuba shop on a fire extinguisher?”
“Good question, let’s take a closer look at the fire extinguisher.”
I unstrap the fire extinguisher from the bracket holding it to the wall and get ready to set it on the nearest lab table when the walls start shaking once again. Amazingly the lights flicker back on. Apparently the aftershock shook things just right to turn the power back on. Lucky for us the book cases had already been knocked over or we might have been in for a bit of trouble. Really, who puts book cases on the 20th floor of a building built right on the San Andreas Fault. I thought these SNL guys are supposed to be smart, but whatever.
“Dad, take a look at this, the inspection tag has a last inspected date of July 21, 1969. That is the day Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.”
“Obviously that is not correct, it must be a clue. Anything else strange about the fire extinguisher?”
“You are not going to believe this, but the signature looks like it says Tuba Stan.”
“Seriously, I told you Tuba Stan was a real thing.”
“Just kidding dad, I think it was signed by you, look Bob Johnson.”
Sure enough it looks like I signed it, but why would I put the moon walk date and sign a fire extinguisher inspection tag. I am pretty sure I am not a fire inspector on the side. Also, while the signature looks like mine, the J is far too swoopy, when I put the J in Johnson I mean business.
“Let me see that before you trick me with some other nonsense.”
I take a look at the fire extinguisher and notice in addition to what is surely a bogus inspection tag, that it is far too light to be filled with Sodium bicarbonate. It looks like the paint is chipped on the bottom, I wonder if the bottom can be unthreaded and come off.