Hard to get in, even harder to get out

(With thanks to Suldog, who also writes a company blog, for opening a little drawer in my mind that contained this story.) In a former life I used to own a small company for which I had to regularly visit big companies. We were quite successfull in what we did, which is very difficult to explain in another language, but it had something to do with exams and legislation. Anyway, that isn't what I wanted to tell you. One of my clients was a large firm that shared an office with some other firms. The architect of that building must have been on drugs, because he had the novel idea to design irregular steps to the main entrance of the building which meant that some of the steps were too wide to take in one normal stride, but too narrow to take in two. So, either you had to make two silly little strides or a normal-and-half-a-stride. And every step had a different hight. No way one could conquer these stairs in a somewhat elegant manner. Not a normal step in sight. Every step required a different approach. Aarrrrggghhh, a very stupid idea for stairs. Some clever person has not come up with a mathematical calculation for stairs for nothing! "Francois Blondel, a French architect, was the first person to establish a rule for staircase design. In 1675, while working for the Royal Academy of Architecture, Blondel devised the following formula: twice the riser height plus the tread depth equals 24 inches (25.5 in today's inches)." See or the full text, very informative and clearly ignored by the stupid architect:http://www.classzone.com/books/algebra_1/page_build.cfm?content=links_app2_ch3&ch=3 Also, the building had parking spaces in front of it and a two-storey parking garage stuck to the side. The parking places in front were very narrow. I drove a big car - well, one has to keep up appearances as the owner of a company does one not? - and earlier visits to that firm had taught me that parking in these narrow spaces wasn't a problem, but getting in and out of the car subsequently was. One unfortunate day therefore I opted to park my car in the garage. As I had parked it near the entrance I walked out and hop-skipped up the stupid stairs to the main entrance. The receptionist told me that I was expected at the top floor of the building. So I went up, had my meetings, which took all of that afternoon until way after everybody else in the building had already left, except for the receptionist and the people I had the last meeting with, and then went down, said goodbye to the receptionist and noticed there was a door that had a sign 'parking garage' on it. I went through that door. The other people all left through the front entrance of the building. The door to the parking garage closed behind me. There were no cars left in the parking garage. Not even mine. I frowned. Had someone stolen my car? I couldn't believe that. To get onto the grounds of the building you had to pass a gate where you had to tell your name and your measurements , which always struck me as kind of weird (just a joke, you did not have to state your measurements, but they wanted to know almost everything else about you before you were allowed to pass the gates). So not stolen then. Suddenly it dawned on me that I had to be on the wrong floor. My car was parked on the floor below. So I turned around and went back to the door. The door that wouldn't open. It could only be opened by using a pass. A pass that I did not have. Shoot! Think quick, I encouraged myself. The ramp! I could just walk down the ramp that led to the lower floor of the garage. No problem. I could get my car and just drive home. No reason to panic! So I walked to were the ramp was. Only to be encountered by a huge gate, all bars, that closed off the ramp. To be opened by using the same pass that you could use to open the door to the building. The pass I did not have. Shoot again! There I was. All alone in a parking garage. I ran back to the door that had closed after me and looked through the little window if I could see anyone. No one there. The entrance hall was empty. The receptionist had gone. I was the only one left in the entire building. I had my mobile phone, so could I phone the firebrigade to let me out? Perhaps I could. But first I phoned hubs. 'I will be late tonight. I'm locked in this building and I have no clue how to get out.' Hubs understood my problem. But since he was about 200 kilometers away, at home, he couldn't really help me. 'I will keep you posted', I said. Then I tried to call the reception desk. I had the phone number of the company I had just visited stored in my mobile. Answering machine and it didn't mention another number to call outside office hours. I looked through the window of the door again, one last attempt to see if perhaps someone was there before I would call the fire brigade. And there actually was someone in the entrance hall. Putting on her coat, ready to leave the building. I screamed and banged my fists against the door. She lifted her head. I banged and screamed even louder. She turned around and saw me through the little window of the door. She came to my rescue and opened the door to let me out. I told her why I was there and she accompanied me down the stairs to the floor below where she kindly used her pass to let me drive out of the garage. I called hubs to let him know that I was on my way home. Actually, on another occasion I had a very similar but different experience in the same building. I will save that story for later. I hated going there. First you had to overcome all sorts of hurdles to get into the stupid building and then they wouldn't let you go again. HATED IT! On a happier note: The lovely Cece, a.k.a. WVU Chick, loves my blog. So she gave me this award. It's the second time I've received it. Yippee! I will pass it on to... Jay from thedeppeffect Simply because I love her blog and she regularly lets my good friend Data appear in her posts. I never cared that much about Data, until she pointed out that the actor who plays him, Brent Spiner, is also a singer and referred to this site. Please go there and listen to song no. 8 to know why Data and I have a special bond. He knows things about me that only very few people know! I'm blushing while I write this. And laughing out loud. (You could also go here to see the actual songtext and listen to the music. I mean: how does he know that?)