Power Bars and Pests

In a previous life, I worked in an environment called a SCIF, which stands for secured classified information facility. I am disappointed that someone in the government was not clever enough to come up with a different description that would have resulted in the acronym SHIT, because that's what working in a SCIF amounts to. Imagine spending 10 hours a day in a sardine tin that has been encased in one of those little fire proof safes you can buy at home depot. Someone farted in the safe before it was sealed closed and no fresh air can get in. That summarizes a SCIF environment.

SCIFs normally don't have windows, so forget natural light. Most of the main entry ways require you to open a combo lock that is older than your grandparents. Not good with numbers? You'll never get into your office. Every place you go in a SCIF requires you to enter a code or swipe a badge. And since the SCIF is classified, OSHA is never going to inspect it.

The furniture usually has mold on it, the carpet looks like it was purchased from a fraternity house that burned down after one last puke fest, and the walls are normally painted some color that makes you want to kill yourself every time you look at them.

Most SCIFs are far off from civilization, so people bring food in with them and just eat lunch at their desk. That is the reason why I had a box of 24 power bars in my office in a SCIF. I had procured the power bars from a Costco with the help of my friend Eva. I went to a Costco once by myself and sustained serious injuries to my head (mild concussion) and my knee (it was even bleeding), as well as breaking a freezer door (after which I was thrown out by the management), and after that I never went in there by myself.

The usual plan for my Saturday evenings back in those days was for me to go to Eva's house. We would sit in the movie room eating cookies, pretending we were going to go to Costco. Eventually Dan, Eva's husband, would give up on us getting to Costco and back in time for dinner. So Dan would go instead, and we could eat more cookies and watch movies instead of going shopping. Strictly Ballroom was a favorite ("Not FRAN!").

But then a bad thing happened. Dan went out of town. We were out of cherry tomatoes and peanut M&Ms. Survival through the weekend was threatened. So we ventured into Costco and somehow ended up in the parking lot with a whole cart full of stuff without quite knowing where it came from, including a box of 24 power bars. I must have been really hungry, and drunk, because I was somehow convinced I was going to eat a power bar every morning for breakfast, and that was my justification for buying them.

Wine goggling + food = bad purchase decisions

I brought the weighty box into my office the following Monday. It had three different types of bars in it. The bar type was distinguished by what was referred to as "flavors". There was "apple and cinnamon", "oatmeal", and "peanut butter". The quotes indicate the veracity of taste when compared to what, for example, actual peanut butter tastes like.

I opened a bar labeled peanut butter and took a bite. It sucked. I threw the power bar into a file drawer next to my desk. I opened the apple and cinnamon. Even worse. I decided to sample the third flavor, oatmeal. It tasted kind of like oatmeal, if the oatmeal was made in a bark bowl and then set on a sand dune in the Sahara for a week before it was consumed. These bars, with one bite taken out, also went into the file drawer.

Over the next month I would forget how bad the power bars tasted and I would open one and bite it. After a mouthful they would go into the file drawer. A few times I was at the office late and had to open a power bar and take a bite to keep my blood sugar up. Eventually all bars ended up in the file drawer.

Approximately 6 months later we were temporarily forbidden to go into the SCIF because there was a rodent infestation. I ended up leaving the SCIF shortly afterwards to go work somewhere else. Another 6 months past and I was working in that SCIF again. They were still having rodent problems.

And then one day a secretary that I knew pretty well because she was always standing outside smoking came storming down the hallway. She had a box full of power bars with a human bite taken out of them at one end, and mouse bites taken out at the other end.

"I just can't BELIEVE this!" she raged. "SOMEONE put all these food bars in a drawer after partially eating them! They attracted mice and now we are going to have to bring in a specialist!" It turned out, on top of snacking on the power bars, the mice had also eaten through some of the network cabling and almost brought down a major system. Oops.

"This is just DISGUSTING!" the secretary continued. "I can't BELIEVE an ADULT would do such a thing! I just know it was [a guy we both despised because he was always blowing his food up in the microwave without a thought to cleaning it up - once he blew up some kind of pasta dish and it looked like someone had run over a squirrel and then stuffed the squirrel in our microwave].

I put on my best poker face and said nothing at the time. Eventually the word leaked out that the power bars belonged to me. I became an outcast in the SCIF and was glad when I was finally moved to a different location.

And, for the record, I recently had a little critter eat the Clif bars I keep in my climbing backpack in my front closet. Thank god, because I wasn't going to eat them. I almost put out a glue trap for the little pest but then decided not to since it didn't eat any of my backpack. Since ridding the front closet of gu and food bars the critter seems to have gone back to where ever it came from.