Austin's Finest

Had this been on a Monday, it would have been a Monday's Fabulous Moment, but we missed it by 24 hours and last Sunday, I had an encounter with some of Austin's finest. This might have to become a series for all those, "Wow, I wish it were Monday" moments...

Sunday morning I had to be at work at 9 a.m. It was my sixth day of work in a row and I had been there until 11 the night before. I was tired (crabby) and knew it was potentially going to feel like a pretty long day. 2 hours in, I had already had some uh, interesting, situations to deal with regarding our renters. Yeah, "interesting" is a good word. I was up on the fly rail, 2 members of the company that were here were down on the stage and 2 people in uniform walked through the stage door and onto the stage. Being a city employee, I won't mention what kind of uniforms they were wearing. Use your imagination.

I headed down off the fly rail and walked onto the stage and said, "Can I help you?" One of Austin's finest said, "Yeah, we got a call that something set off your alarm here." I said, "Hmm...that's interesting. I don't know why that would be."

"You didn't call us?"

"No."

"And you haven't heard an alarm going off?"

"No."

"They said it was something on the ceiling that set it off."

"Okay."

::Pause for everyone to look at each other cluelessly::

Finally I said, "You are more than welcome to go up to the front of the building where the main alarm system console is and check it out.

::Longer pause for our two uniformed friends to stare at each other, then stare at me, then stare at each other again::

One of them then looked at me and said, "What's the number of the address here?"

"1165"

"We're supposed to be at 1161."

"Weeeeell, I would venture to say that might be part of the problem then."

"Wait, is this the library?"

Pause while I look around for three purposes.

1.To move my head so they won't see my less than successful attempts to not laugh.
2.To give them the opportunity to look around at the theatre and stage surrounding us and determine that that might in fact have been a silly question.
3. Upon realizing that number two was not going to happen, buying myself time to determine whether or not it would be wise to say something along the lines of, "Do you see any books in here foo'?"

Recognizing that I was tired (crabby) and less equipped than normal to deal well with those functioning on an obviously dim operating system, I quickly said, "No sir, the library is next door."

The two of them looked at each other, looked at me, looked at each other, thanked me for my time and walked out the door.

In review, let's not focus on the fact that they were at the wrong address. Let's not focus on the fact that they were on a stage and thought there was a chance they were in a library. How about the fact that they are city employees, standing in city buildings, city buildings that they have been called to serve and protect, and still have no idea where they are.

You made it in by the skin of your teeth my friends, but consider yourselves officially awarded Austin's Finest 2009.