"Even if I got rid of all my problems, I'd just go out and get new ones..."

It's like living in Bugs-land. Except with fewer power suits.
6:16 p.m. on 2005-01-11

At my last job, I worked in a university building, and on the top floor they did animal experimentation. Of course, no one officially ever stated that they did animal experimentation up there, and they certainly didn't advertise the fact on any floor plan.

The stairs stopped a floor below. The lifts, the only access up there, bore no "Level 5" button. The only way to reach the labs was to own a special key, and to insert that key in a special hole in the elevator panel whilst the lift was on the move.

Now I work for a television company. And it turns out, television companies and medical schools? Not all that different. They all have their dirty little, hidden-floor secrets.

It's known as the "Penthouse." I have no idea what's up there, but I know that the stairs stop a level before. I know that there is a level eight button on the lift panel, but it won't work unless you have a special key and put it in the special hole.

My only glimpse of this mysterious wonderland came by accident. The only way to summon a lift from my office is to hit both the up and the down button, and it frequently means you have to wait for the lift to head upwards before you can tell it where you really want to go.

Someone from the Penthouse must have summoned the lift, because I rode up to the eighth floor, and the doors opened to give me a quick snatch of lush carpeting, rich walls and antique furniture. Then they closed just as quickly, and the other occupant of the lift just looked at me with a surprised expression, as though astonished to see me there.

It's got me thinking though. If the university uses their secret hidden floor to perform animal experimentation, does the tv company perform experiments on celebrities? Are Ant and Dec, Cat Deeley and Bruce Forsyth trapped in little cages up there, being fed on water and handfuls of peanuts, timed on how long it takes them to run through mazes or to realise that if you touch the booby-trapped cheese, you get a shock?

*sighs*

Listening to: The Wannadies "Little By Little"

Quote:
Saffron: "I do know my bible, sir. On the night of their betrothal the wife shall open to the man as the furrow to the plow. He shall work in her again and again, til she bring him to his full. And rest him then upon the sweat of her breast."
Mal: "Whoa. Good bible."

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