"I'm not Captain Save-a-Ho!"

See, this is what I get for staying up and catching HBO's "America Undercover" series. Damn, I'm dumb.

Another one of those "longer than anticipated" days at work today. We have someone who is new to the front desk staff, but has worked in our agency for quite a while. The thing is, this person is so incredibly sweet, and tries really hard, but damned if this person can do the job right. After making Swiss cheese out of my schedule today, and rescheduling people for me all over the place (which the front desk staff is not allowed to do, since I am in charge of my own schedule), there was little else anyone could do to keep me from snapping. Steve, of all people, the King of the Wig Out, was even telling me to keep my cool (which, as of late, has become more and more difficult given the current work environment climate).

Never mind that I had to play mind games with an eight-year-old in our waiting room tonight. As I was approaching one of our security doors to get into my office, he walked up to me.

"I know the code to get in there," he said, gesturing to the keypad. Great, I thought, another little shit who is going to broadcast our security code to all kids within earshot. "Yeah? Why don't you show me?" I said, allowing him to punch the keys. And son of a biscuit, the kid knew the code. He beamed at me when the light on the keypad turned green.

I jiggled the handle of the door, pretending that it wouldn't open. "Are you sure?" I asked. "Yeah. The light's green." Okay, so this was a smarter one. "All right. Try it again." He tried again, but punched in the wrong code, so the light stayed red. He looked perplexed.

"You know what?" I said, "When you punch in the keys on that keypad, it takes your fingerprints." Looking amazed, he turned back to the keypad, and punched in the code again, but this time used his thumb. The code was correct, and the light went green again. He turned to me, beaming from ear to ear. Damned clever little shits! I mean, even though my story was total bull, he believed it, and believed it enough that he thought switching fingers would help! Gah! My tactic wasn't working. I had to think of something else.

"Oh, I forgot," I said, leaning in a little closer. "Since the keypad takes your fingerprints, it can tell whose prints are supposed to be on it, and whose aren't. If your prints go on there, and they're not supposed to be, you could get in trouble." Absolutely mortified at the thought of getting "in trouble," this smart little dude jumped back about five feet, his mouth wide open. I leaned towards him again, whispering, "I don't think we want you to get in trouble, right?" He nodded solemnly, and went back to his seat. His mom, who was sitting ten feet away, chuckled to herself as I went back towards the front office to tell them what had just happened.

"Is what I said to that kid to get him to not blab to everyone the key code and stop fucking around with the keypad so terrible?" I asked. Nobody seemed to think so.

See, I don't even feel bad about lying to a kid about something like this. How messed up is that?

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to get in a chat room and lie about being the winning bidder on Justin Timberlake's leftover French Toast. I mean, Freedom Toast. Damned frogs, making toast for a pansy-ass Mama's boy. Crikey.