Post by Alexandra Bishop on Mar 14, 2016 20:48:32 GMT
Thursday March 10th, between 2 and 2:30 you were in front of me at the customer service desk. You smiled at me first and we exchanged a few glances. Tell me what you were asking and what you were wearing. I thought you were handsome, nice and tall and I loved your goatee."
Above is the first entry in a saved conversation that was recovered
and decrypted from a flash drive in the shape of Scooby Doo. The flash drive was brought to the security office at the local Whitinsville Golf Club by a man who said he found it in the 8th hole on the greens. "It looked like rain," he said. And he knew (wrongly, but nonetheless he knew) that "those gadgets aren't cheap."
The man was newly retired, and nervous about it.
"How do you think it ended up there?" he asked the security officer, hoping to enjoy a few minutes of friendly conversation before he had to go home to his wife, whom he hadn't spoken to since sometime last week.
"I'm thinking about joining a gym," he said to his wife as the two passed by one another in the hallway one evening on the way to their separate bedrooms.
She paused and turned around.
He felt fear and regret.
She exhaled her disappointment audibly, then continued to her room and closed the door.
He made a noise that was somewhere between nervous laughter and a dog whose paw had just been trodden on. Then he, too, went into his room, hoping his wife hadn't heard the embarrassing vocal ejaculation.
Now, a week later, he had found an excuse to stay away for a while, and he wasn't letting it get away.
The security officer didn't answer at first. He was signing a form that would never be seen again, scribbling nothings onto the bottom line.
He looked up at the golfer from behind the counter; first to the khaki shorts that came up a bit too high above the knee, then the bright orange polo shirt with one or two long blond strands of chest hair popping out of the unfastened top button, and then, finally, the dumb, infant-grin on the golfer's face. "Look at this fucking asshole," he thought to himself, before remembering that he had been asked a question.
"What?"
"Scooby," the golfer said, his grin undiminished, "who do you think threw him in the 8th hole?"
The officer entertained this question for a fraction of a second but then remembered he wasn't being paid to solve mysteries right then.
He held out his hand toward the golfer. Scooby lay there, smiling at the ceiling.
"Dunno. You find out."
The golfer's grin faded and then morphed into apprehension.
"W-what?"
"This isn't lost and found, bud. Just keep the thing."
The golfer considered this for a moment. Was it a trick? Was the officer trying to lure him into stealing the flash drive? Was that entrapment?
"Jesus christ," said the security officer, with the same air of disappointment and impatience as the man's wife.
Then something unexpected happened. The golfer felt something swell up inside his chest. He snatched the flash drive from the officer's hand, roughly, like the youngest sibling who'd had his big ears flicked just one too many times. He looked up at the security officer and defiantly replied, "I would think that, being an officer of the law, you would do the right thing and return this to its rightful owner. But since I can see..."
The golfer's first confident speech of his life trailed off as the officer calmly walked into the back office and flicked the door closed.
The golfer felt the familiar twinge of defeat and embarrassment creeping back. But he suppressed it. Not again. Not this time. He was retired, damn it, not just from the insurance company, but from getting trampled on and put down all the time.
He looked down at the flash drive in his hand.
"Scooby," he said, with renewed vigor, "we're gonna solve this mystery."
He popped the flash drive into his pocket and bounced out of the front door of the security office- then reached around for his keys and remembered he put them down on the counter, so snuck quietly back in to grab them. But when he came out again none of the confidence had faded from his face. He hopped into his FIAT convertible and zoomed off into the sunset, fuzzy golf club covers waving in the breeze in the passenger seat next to him.
Above is the first entry in a saved conversation that was recovered
and decrypted from a flash drive in the shape of Scooby Doo. The flash drive was brought to the security office at the local Whitinsville Golf Club by a man who said he found it in the 8th hole on the greens. "It looked like rain," he said. And he knew (wrongly, but nonetheless he knew) that "those gadgets aren't cheap."
The man was newly retired, and nervous about it.
"How do you think it ended up there?" he asked the security officer, hoping to enjoy a few minutes of friendly conversation before he had to go home to his wife, whom he hadn't spoken to since sometime last week.
"I'm thinking about joining a gym," he said to his wife as the two passed by one another in the hallway one evening on the way to their separate bedrooms.
She paused and turned around.
He felt fear and regret.
She exhaled her disappointment audibly, then continued to her room and closed the door.
He made a noise that was somewhere between nervous laughter and a dog whose paw had just been trodden on. Then he, too, went into his room, hoping his wife hadn't heard the embarrassing vocal ejaculation.
Now, a week later, he had found an excuse to stay away for a while, and he wasn't letting it get away.
The security officer didn't answer at first. He was signing a form that would never be seen again, scribbling nothings onto the bottom line.
He looked up at the golfer from behind the counter; first to the khaki shorts that came up a bit too high above the knee, then the bright orange polo shirt with one or two long blond strands of chest hair popping out of the unfastened top button, and then, finally, the dumb, infant-grin on the golfer's face. "Look at this fucking asshole," he thought to himself, before remembering that he had been asked a question.
"What?"
"Scooby," the golfer said, his grin undiminished, "who do you think threw him in the 8th hole?"
The officer entertained this question for a fraction of a second but then remembered he wasn't being paid to solve mysteries right then.
He held out his hand toward the golfer. Scooby lay there, smiling at the ceiling.
"Dunno. You find out."
The golfer's grin faded and then morphed into apprehension.
"W-what?"
"This isn't lost and found, bud. Just keep the thing."
The golfer considered this for a moment. Was it a trick? Was the officer trying to lure him into stealing the flash drive? Was that entrapment?
"Jesus christ," said the security officer, with the same air of disappointment and impatience as the man's wife.
Then something unexpected happened. The golfer felt something swell up inside his chest. He snatched the flash drive from the officer's hand, roughly, like the youngest sibling who'd had his big ears flicked just one too many times. He looked up at the security officer and defiantly replied, "I would think that, being an officer of the law, you would do the right thing and return this to its rightful owner. But since I can see..."
The golfer's first confident speech of his life trailed off as the officer calmly walked into the back office and flicked the door closed.
The golfer felt the familiar twinge of defeat and embarrassment creeping back. But he suppressed it. Not again. Not this time. He was retired, damn it, not just from the insurance company, but from getting trampled on and put down all the time.
He looked down at the flash drive in his hand.
"Scooby," he said, with renewed vigor, "we're gonna solve this mystery."
He popped the flash drive into his pocket and bounced out of the front door of the security office- then reached around for his keys and remembered he put them down on the counter, so snuck quietly back in to grab them. But when he came out again none of the confidence had faded from his face. He hopped into his FIAT convertible and zoomed off into the sunset, fuzzy golf club covers waving in the breeze in the passenger seat next to him.