Chapter 2 of the Great Panty Mystery
This is a true story. Some of the names have been changed to protect the innocent.
Panty Man, Part 2
Background: Last time we checked on our intrepid team in facilities management, they effectively and efficiently dealt with a woman’s undergarment discovered in a conference room. Like most facility management issues, the psychological fallout was much worse than the physical problems. In this case, the sight of a woman’s undergarment shocked and awed the old male engineers, most of whom had never seen such a thing. It is not that male engineers never interact with women in an intimate way, but when they do, it is in total darkness.
A few things of note that could not be addressed in our last blog entry due to lack of space: (1) The undergarment was white cotton full brief design that you can often get at a Dollar Store for $1.00 for a package of three; and (2) Biochemical analysis of the garment detected no DNA evidence. It had not been worn.
Despite that, we had to deal with a classist racist suggestion by a senior engineer that it must have been discarded by members of the cleaning crew, almost all of whom were people of color, who were having sex on the conference table. Seriously? Like no white-collar White folk ever, ever, ever had sex in the workplace?!? We knew it was not the cleaning crew because we know them and they would not do anything like that. They were good people.
Things in our world returned to normal. Still, we had daily issues to handle. Shortly after the conference room incident, a Nor’easter blew into town. I remember it well since we almost lost the Tiki bar on the roof of our building. Some palm trees, lawn torches, aluminum webbed lawn furniture from the Dollar Store, and a fully stocked Ikea bar with quality whiskey. Nor’easters in our neck of the woods have been known to blow everything off roof tops. Despite the very hazardous weather, I had to send my crew up on the roof in hurricane winds to disassemble our Tiki bar and store it securely. When required to support the mission, I pride myself in having an iron will to send my employees into danger.
A well-managed building is a finely tuned machine, similar in many ways to those wooden war ships crewed by iron men sailing from all the European ports bringing the blessings of colonialism to hundreds of millions of indigenous people around the world. Like those rugged sailors, each member of my team has an essential job to do. Without a harmonious relationship, our building could sink quicker than the Pequod when one little mistake allowed Moby Dick to sink the ship, killing all hands but Ishmael. Even Starbuck, the world’s first barista, perished. If we didn’t watch out, that undergarment could be our Moby Dick.
A day or two after the Nor’easter, we held a memorial service for a couple of our crew members that blew off the roof. Mary Magdalene and I came back to Mary’s office for an afternoon snort of good whiskey and a couple of Havanas. Mary suggested we could save a fortune if we asked employees to bring their own toilet paper to work. We got so many darned HELP line complaints about no toilet paper in the bathrooms that they were no longer funny – just boring. BOOORRRING! We could use money to fund our bonuses.
Suddenly, a distraught looking Jack darkened Magdalene’s office portal. You remember Jack, right? He runs the HELP line where people call in building complaints, but we never answer them. The important thing to remember about Jack is he has standing orders to never, ever, never interrupt us unless it is a national emergency, such as World War III. Seeing him at the door is bad news, VERY bad news.
“Bosses,” he says. “We have a problem.” Usually that is enough to make me leave for the day but since I was drinking since I got to work, I was incapable of going anywhere.
Magdalene says to Jack, “Now what?”
“Someone left a woman’s panty in an elevator.”
“That cannot be,” I exclaimed. “No one fucks in an elevator. It won’t stay up long enough and then it goes down so quickly!”
“A couple of points,” opined Magdalene. “First, MikeyD, you are projecting. And second, you are being biased in assuming heteronormative sexual elevator behavior.”
Knowing she got me on both points, I shut up. Talking less was more in this case.
“Okay, Jack,” Magdalene directed, “You know the drill. HAZMAT removal of the garment, then firebomb the elevator.”
Jack saluted and left, walking as if were a man on a mission.
“I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, Mary, but are you sure firebombing the elevator is necessary?”
“It’s all about perception MikeyD. When the employees see the burned-out hulk of an elevator, they will know we are on the case.”
I was cogitating on that when the emergency red phone lit up. We had this installed it so the big boss man upstairs would not know we never answered the phones. Him calling me was a very bad sign on a day that already seemed to be going to hell. I had to answer that phone.
“Yes, your highness, how can I serve you today?”
Without even asking how I was doing, he starts off screaming. “Our women staff are getting anxious about this undergarment situation. They think a prevert is running amok in our building. What the hell are you doing about it?”
“Sir, it is pervert, not prevert. And, with all due respect, there are 5,000 people working here. Odds are we have one pervert employee in the building. You should call HR, not me. And further, Sir, you need to put his in perspective. We are talking just a couple of undergarments. Hardly any considering that about 5,000 are worn here every single day. In fact, I’m wearing one...”
“You know what I hate about you!! It’s those fucking cheeky goddamn comments!! If I want to say prevert, I’ll say prevert! So fuck you! Three more of them panty things was found in other elevators this morning. Fix this or I’ll find someone who can!!!”
He disconnected the call disrespectfully without saying “Goodbye.”
“Magdalene, I think we have a problem.” I said haltingly.
Meanwhile, Moby Dick was silently circling around our building.
Check in the near future for the conclusion of Panty Man as the plot continues to thicken.
Re: Music to go with this chapter.
I could not find a song called “Panty Man.” To all my singer/songwriter friends out there, please write one. Rick? Christine?...
In 1928, the late great fantastic astonishingly good songster, Mississippi John Hurt, did a version of the song “Candy Man.” An acoustically clear version of the song is included here covered by a White man. (See previous blog post on the history of Rock and Roll.) Anyhoo, this performer was very faithful to Mississippi John Hurt’s original, and if you substitute “Panty” for “Candy,” then the song is a good listening with this post.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qc7ZvDRJnKY