Through the Roof

A necessary part of this blog is the anecdotes, and there will be MANY.  This, however, is the first, and it's a mystery!  Oooh.

So, many years ago, I was an assistant manager in a huge bookstore.  Basically it was set up like a warehouse with the office and restrooms nestled in the back, sharing a common wall.  One day, I was straightening the bestseller overstock which was housed on huge shelves which went all the way up the shared wall.  When I got to the top, I noticed that the shelves were much higher than the drop ceilings in the restrooms, so you could look out over the wall and see the top of the acoustic tiles which made up the ceiling of the bathrooms.  On the heels of that observation was the realization that there was something sitting atop one of the tiles.  I climbed down the bookshelf and walked around into the men's room, climbed up on the sink and lifted one of the tiles up and to the side.  I popped my head up through the ceiling like a meerkat and found the object.  I called to the warehouse manager and asked him to take a look.  He did and then proceded to extract the object.  It took only seconds for us to realize that he was holding the largest pair of briefs on earth, and they were SEVERELY soiled.  Now...I GET IT...someone was embarrassed...OK.  I get that they wanted to get rid of the evidence...OK.  What I don't get is why they would climb up onto the toilet tank, remove a ceiling tile, and toss their CSI-traceable, soiled man panties into the rafters!  And WHY wasn't the lined trash can good enough?!  Beyond that...judging from the size of the briefs, I'm simply agog that the toilet tank was strong enough to him aloft long enough to fling his embarrassment into the heavens. 

At the top of my list of "Things I never expected to encounter while managing a bookstore", this is near the top.  Somewhere out there is an incontinent booklover who is going commando.  He was never caught.  No ceiling tile is safe.