“Can I see your ID badge?” asked the security guard.  There was no attached “sir” which experience has taught me is a bad sign where security people are concerned.

“I don’t have one, but-”

“This entrance is for employees only.  Use the service counter entrance.”

I gave the security guard an appraising look.  Evidently he was a good enough reader of body language that he picked up on the whole “swift kick to the groin, then race down the hallway” strategy I was piecing together, because his hand moved purposefully toward the taser holstered on his right hip.

“Alright,” I said, backing toward the door, “I’ll go.”

The next moment I was standing outside Wesco again, and it was definitely the low point of the whole ordeal.  Then I realized it was my turn to pick up Clem from the Collie-seum.  Dejectedly I began trudging toward the moat.

If the route into Wesco is intended to discourage visitors, navigating it in reverse after having been foiled by the security at their actual location is utterly demoralizing.  I doubt many people have the gumption to ever come back a second time….

Which I bet is why the security guard was so surprised when I came barreling back through the door an hour later,  15 pounds of squirming terrier clutched tightly to my chest with one hand.  I’ll give the guy some credit – he was awfully fast on the draw.  He already had his taser out by the time I flung Clem at him.

Unfortunately, he also had a very steady hand, and managed to taser Clem when she was still in midair.

I call this “unfortunate” because anything which delivers a smaller charge than the electric chair only gets Clem excited.  I strolled slowly down the corridor toward the service counter, knowing that any additional security personnel would be busy for a while.

And so it was that at long last I stood in front of someone who was willing (albeit grudgingly so) and able to sell me a thousand watt light-bulb.  He was a little confused at first when I walked around the service counter from behind him, and he did falter sometimes when the sounds of people running in fear or being dragged from their offices by a wild animal got especially loud (I thought all was lost when the fire alarm went off, but I was able to convince my paint-befuddled interlocutor that it was just my cell phone’s ring tone), but I was able to get him through the checkout process in the end.

Finally, I carefully accepted the proffered replacement bulb, shot back the double bolts securing the service counter door, and stepped outside.  Clem was waiting by the moat, using the taser to fish for piranhas.

“Good girl,” I said, reaching down to scritch her with my free hand.

“Wanna go get some hamburgers?”

Clem snorted, then began to butt her head into my knee.  Hard.

I took that as a yes.

As I drew near the building, my newly donned tough-guy demeanor was immediately cracked by the slogan adorning walls of the godforsaken structure : “Wesco, the extra effort people”.  My incredulity brought me to a dead stop – extra effort?  extra effort?!  In addition to atrocious customer service and deliberate misinformation regarding the company’s whereabouts, I had just recently overcome the difficulties placed in my way by the fact that the place was located in the least accessible region of the city and had guard-piranhas!  Extra effort was certainly on display, but it was all directed at keeping customers out!

Recovering myself sufficiently to continue, I approached the main entrance.  At least, the door said “Main Entrance” on it, though underneath it bore the additional legend “Please use service counter entrance during business hours” and an arrow pointing left.  I wondered for a moment what kind of business had a main entrance for use only after or before business hours, but I decided to play along.

I strode along a blank stretch of brick wall to a heavy steel door that said

Ah-hah!  So the little phone punk had been lying to me after all – “We, uh, close at three-fifteen.”  Feeling vindicated, I tried the door.  It was locked.  I checked my watch.  11:03 a.m. on a Wednesday.  I tried the door again, twisting on the handle and yanking on the door until it rattled in its frame just to make sure.  I pounded on the door and  hollered the usual things one hollers in such situations:

“Hello?”

“Is anybody in there?

“Are you guys open -it’s Wednesday!”

“Let me in!  For the love of God, let me in!”

“Candy-Gram.”

“Pizza delivery.”

“Fire!”

“Rape!”

“Weasels!”

But there was no reply.

“Alright,” I thought, “I’ve tried it their way, now I’m going in that main entrance.”  I barreled back along the wall and grabbed the handle of the main entrance, pulling it…well, nowhere, because it was locked tight and didn’t budge an inch.  Grabbing tight hold of the handle I leaped up and placed a foot on the wall at either side of the door, heedless of the consequences that prying it open would now entail for various parts of my anatomy.  Again and again I heaved with every muscle I possessed, my magnificently overdeveloped flacktoids straining mightily, but to no avail.  Exhausted, I dropped back to the ground, noting with a certain grim satisfaction that I had at least left my mark – two footprints, each about a half-inch deep, were pressed into the brick of the wall.

Half-muttering, half-growling I prowled around the perimeter of the building until I spotted a door marked “Employees Only”.  Deciding that at this point I was working harder to put money in this outfit’s pockets than anyone on their payroll, I decided that I was entitled to get in any way I could.

I pounded across the pavement and gave an almighty wrench to the handle, flinging wide the door.  “Success!” I thought, racing inside.

And that’s when I ran into the security guard.  Into his midsection, to be precise.

Light-bulb saga trivia: a few posts ago I used the nonsense words “blantoon” and “sninkleboffins” in my post.  The WordPress spellchecker objected to “blantoon” but not to “sninkleboffins”, which begs the question: are these a real thing?  Has anyone ever heard of a sninkleboffin before?   And if so, why?  What are they?

This, as it turns out, was not a great idea.  First of all, many of the semi-literate hillfolk who dwell in west Fort Collins distrust anyone who they see exit a form of conveyance not pulled by some sort of animal.  Some of them chased me off their property with farm implements, others insisted on escorting me back to my car at the point of a double-barreled scatter-gun despite my assurance that I was not affiliated with the guvmint and that what went on between them and the livestock was their own business.  I did manage to win the confidence of a handful of local residents, however, who were unanimous in assuring me that twern’t no Commerce drive round these parts.  Eventually I gave it up and retreated to the nearby bastion of learning operated by my lovely spouse, where I proceeded to consult the oracle.

I at once realized that Wesco was not even in the remote vicinity.  It was, in fact, back on the east side of town.  At first I was furious at the vile treachery practiced upon me, but I was soon to change my mind once I discovered what giving me real directions to Wesco would have entailed.  Here’s the simplest way to get to Wesco, using my experience as a guide:

From I-25, head west on Mulberry.  Turn right on South Link Lane (it’s kind of a tricky intersection, so watch out) and head north about 500ft.  On your right you will see an establishment known as “A Hunt Club” (curses, Home Despot guy was right!).  Pull in and park your car, you will have to proceed on foot from here (make sure to approach the bouncer standing guard at the door of this den of iniquity and pay him the cover charge, or he will have your car towed when you don’t go inside).

Head down the narrow alleyway beside the club until you reach the dumpster at what appears to be the alley’s dead end.  Roll the dumpster aside (this is easier if you come early in the week when it is still pretty empty, and easier still in the afternoon once any transients sleeping there have cleared out for the day) and lift the manhole cover underneath.  Descend into the sewer below and head northeast about a quarter of a mile.

Be careful not to miss the next manhole cover, as it is the last one for quite some time.  Exit the sewer into an old switching yard – you may have to fight hobos if you did not bring any comestibles with which to distract them.  Hike up a pile of scree until you reach the moat surrounding the Wesco parking lot.  It is filled with piranhas, so you will have to leap over it if you did not bring a hobo with which to distract them…

The quest simply will not release my blog.  I’d like to wrap it up tomorrow, but I promise nothing.

I was nearing my goal now, but I still had to make sure that this Wesco outfit had what I was looking for.  Another phone call was in order, and that meant talking to another lighting department jerk.

“Yeah, this is Wesco” answered a voice, somewhat less formally than I expected.

“Hi, I understand you sell commercial light-bulbs out there?” I asked.

“Well…we sell light-bulbs.  I don’t know about commercial.“  What is it with these frickin’ people?  Every lighting person I talk to refers to this damn thing as a commercial light-bulb, but every one of them acts like I’m speaking gibberish when I use the same term!  Is this their sick little joke?

“Yes, well I’m looking for a GE model R1000 thousand-watt bulb.” I reply, hoping that this tactic will work again like it did on Home Depot guy.

“Oh, we don’t carry GE, we only have Philips.”  The relief in his voice was palpable.  He was glad that he couldn’t help me; soon I would hang up and he could go back to huffing paint.

“Philips would be fine, as long as it was an equivalent type and wattage,” I said in a chipper tone.

“Oh,” came the sullen answer, “well, let me check.”

I half expected that he would leave me in phone limbo until I hung up on my own, but apparently lighting salesman, like devils in old stories, have to obey certain rules in their war against humanity.  He had to actually check his inventory, it seems, and report back to me.

“It looks like we have…thirteen in stock” he said, his tone indicating some small hope that this would not be enough for my purposes.  I was pretty sure that this “expert” had never seen a thousand-watt bulb – you could light up the entire city of Fort Collins with thirteen of these things.

“I only need the one,” I assured him.  “Now, you guys are on Commerce, correct?” I was pressing my advantage.

“Yuh.”

And here is where I made my next grave mistake.  Now, I really had no idea where Commerce was, but strip club guy had said it was “out there“, so naturally, being an east Fort Collins dweller, I assumed that “out there” meant “out west near the foothills”.  I took a stab at it, figuring any decent human being would correct me if I was wrong.  I had forgotten that I was not dealing with a decent human being but with a slavering monster whose primary nourishment is derived from anguish.

“Is that out by Taft Hill?” I asked.

“Yeah, north past Mulberry and take a left,” he said.  This, as it turned out, was raw prevarication on his part, naked and without adornment.

“Okay, I’ll be right there,” I said.

“Well, we’re about to close” he replied, hurling one last obstacle in my way.

“It’s just past three o’clock,” I protested, attempting to batter aside this ridiculous obstruction.

“Yeah, we uh, close at three-fifteen.”

“Fine.  I’ll be in tomorrow.”  I didn’t believe him for a second, but I too have certain rules that I must obey in these conflicts.

Seriously, tomorrow I will end this thing…

After a much briefer trip through automated phone menu hell, I wound up actually talking to a person in this second store’s lighting department.  This was when I made another disagreeable discovery: lighting experts are jerks.  The guy with whom I spoke was a fine specimen, as you can see from my faithful reproduction of our conversation:

“Lighting department”

“Hello, I’m looking for a commercial light-bulb.” I said, remembering the term they had used at the first place I had visited in my quest.

“What’s a commercial light-bulb?” the expert asked in an amused-tolerant kind of voice, as though I had just asked for a blantoon of fresh sninkleboffins.

“Well,” I said, plunging ahead anyway, “I’m looking to replace a GE model R1000 thousand-watt light-bulb”.

“Oh” said the expert, somewhat nonplussed.  I could hear the sound of typing.

“Well,” he continued after a pause, “We don’t carry any of those.”  There was a certain finality in his voice that irked me.  I decided to try and get even.

“Well, GE’s website lists Home Depot as a preferred distributor in Colorado, could you call and check with another store?” I asked innocently, hoping to send him into the madness of the phone labyrinth.

“I doubt that any of our stores would carry this item,” he said quickly, “but you might try Wesco, they carry commercial lighting.”

Biting back the urge to riposte with “What’s commercial lighting?”, I confined my response to a more practical query.

“I’m unfamiliar with Wesco, are they here in town?”

“They’re out by the Hunt Club, do you know where that is?” he asked in a leering tone.

Now, I had indeed heard of Fort Collins’ infamous “gentleman’s club” where individuals who were in no way gentleman might go to imbibe strong drink and watch ladies take off their clothes for money, but I knew it by (unsavory) reputation only – I had no idea where the place was.

“No, I don’t,” I replied.

“Uh-huh” returned the expert, his knowing smirk actually audible.  His tone implied that not only was he perfectly sure I knew the exact location, operating hours, and featured performers of the Hunt Club, he mightily suspected that I might be calling from there right now.

“Well, it’s on Commerce” he replied in a disgruntled “ok, buddy, if you want to take that holier-than-thou pose with me” kind of voice that suggested further details would have to be pried from his lips with torture.

As tempting as that was, I was on a deadline.  And I’ve been told to curtail my acetylene torch usage, which takes a lot of the fun out of it anyway.  So I just gave an insincere “thanks” and rang off.

Tune in tomorrow for our thrilling conclusion…

Anyway, I decided to trust to my own abilities in future, so I did what I probably should have done in the first place and hit the web, looking up the manufacturer’s website and seeing if they had any preferred distributors in the area.  They did.  Right at the top of the list was Home Depot.  “Well,” I thought, “this couldn’t get much easier.”  I was wrong, though, it could have been much, much easier than it turned out to be.

I called the nearest of Fort Collins’ two Home Depot stores, and that’s when the pain began.  First I had to navigate their labyrinthine automated phone system, replete with menus.

“Thank you for calling Home Despot” said a mildly pleasant voice.

“Despot?” I asked the phone.

“If you are calling to find out store hours, press one,” intoned the voice.  Nope, not me, lady.

“If you know the extension of the person you’d like to call, press two.”  I waited.  After a brief pause, the voice continued.

“If you are calling in regards to a home delivery or installation, press three.”  The pause was longer this time, I was getting a bit impatient.

If you are calling about tool rental, press three.”

“Wait,” I said, “I thought home delivery was three.”  The pause was interminable, I thought I heard whispering somewhere on the other end of the line.

“To uh, talk to receiving, press five,” said the voice.

“I just want to talk to someone in the damn lighting department,” I growled.

“To talk to someone in one of our damn departments, press seven twice” said the voice almost immediately.  I was fairly certain I heard muffled giggles afterward.

Nonetheless, I punched seven two times and endured another brief pause before being presented with another menu.

“For Appliances, press one“.

“For the Bath Department, press two“

“For the Turkish Bath Department, press two slowly and hold it for awhile”

I was starting to clench my jaw a little bit, aware that I had been on the phone for about ten minutes and found out nothing at all so far.

“For Building Materials, press three,” continued the voice.

“Para el Décor, oprima numero quatro.”

“Was that Spanish?” I asked the phone.

“For Doors and Windows, call Ace Hardware.”

“Excuse me?” I was, I admit, becoming increasingly bewildered.

“For Electronics, press five,” offered the voice serenely.  “Hmm,” I thought, maybe giant light-bulbs are in the electronics department.  I wanted badly to press five and find out, but decided to wait and see if there was a “lighting department” coming up.

“For infant disposal, press six.”

“Wait, what?!” I hollered into the phone.  A head peeped around the door of my office.  It was the boss who had given me the assignment in the first place.

“Everything goin’ okay?” he asked.

“Oh, sure,” I said quickly, “I’ve found a local distributor and we’re haggling over price.”

“Give ‘em hell” he said, vanishing back around my doorframe.

Meanwhile I’d missed one whole menu option.  “Please don’t be lighting,” I thought.

“For lighting,” said the voice.

“Oh thank Buddha” I said quietly.

“Enter the first six digits of the value commonly represented by the Greek character pi.”

I was past astonishment at this point, but I did have to scramble to punch in 314159.  There was a pause, then “Please hold to talk to someone in our lightning department.”

“No, not lightning – lighting! Lighting!” I shrieked.

“Give ‘em hell” came a voice from down the hall.

“Er, lighting department” replied the voice, followed by a long pause.  Then there was a series of tones, and another recorded voice came on the line to say “I’m sorry, your call cannot be completed as dialed.  Please hang up and try again.”

I flung the receiver across the room and yanked the cord out of the wall, then raced out the door and down the hall.  I burst outside, running into the empty field behind our offices.  I turned my face up to the sky and howled out a cry of rage in the form of all the vilest profanities I could muster.  Several geese fell from the sky dead, and when I came to myself I noticed that a circle of grass around my feet was withered and blackened as though it had been scorched by a terrible flame.

One day last week as I sat at a desk, innocently pretending to mind the company’s business while sending threatening emails to various local officials using my employer’s business email accounts, one of my bosses came into the room holding what appeared at first glance to be a head made entirely out of glass.  A second glance showed me that the strange object contained wires and filaments, and tapered at one end, where it was capped by a metal housing; the strange object was in fact a giant light-bulb.

“I need you to get me another one of these,” he said.

“Sure,” I replied, “where do we keep them?”

“No,” he said, his tone indicating the unsaid idiot, “I need you to go and get another one, we don’t have any.”

“Alright,” I returned, “do you have any idea where I might get one of those?”

He gave me the name of the place (“design lighting or lighting designs or something like that”) and some general directions, and handed me the giant bulb.  After packing it carefully in a box for transit, I set off for the lighting store.  This is the kind of task I love best – out in a car, good music on the radio, in search of something decidedly out of the ordinary, far away from my stressed-out, surly bosses.

Upon reaching the lighting store (as usual the directions, delivered by an impatient person, had been vague towards the end, so I had the added pleasure of actually finding the place myself), I removed the giant bulb, toward which I was feeling a growing affection, from its box and carried it oh-so-carefully inside with me.  I could tell almost immediately that the odds were against my quest ending here.  All around me were fancy fixtures and lamps, but no light-bulbs.  Luckily, this was one of those places where the staff work for commission, so I was soon pounced upon by an erstwhile “associate”.

“Can I help you?” came the voice from behind me.

“Yes,” I said, turning around, “I’m looking for one of these.”

“Oh,” he replied as his gaze took in my outlandish charge “we don’t carry anything like that.”

It turned out to be the first of several consultations with various members of the staff, each ostensibly more knowledgeable than the last.  Eventually a grizzled oracle, after turning the globe over and over in his hands as though it were some alien artifact,  gave forth the opinion that a firm known as Conserv-a-watt, down in Denver, would be my best chance.  I gingerly reclaimed my precious burden and headed back to work.  The most valuable part of the experience was that in the course of the many powwows I had myself looked the bulb over minutely and found a maker, model number, and wattage, which I figured might be used to track down a replacement bulb closer to home.

To be continued tomorrow in “El Burro Volador and the Quest for the Hobo’s Gold”