Work Stories: Episode 8: I Spy With My Little Eye

Previously on Work Stories, I told the tale of a car that changed colours as it drove by.  It was an amazing sight, not really an amazing story.  Oh well.  What’s told is told.  Now it’s time for another story.  Let’s see what I pull out of the bag this time.

Let’s go with a story that happened in the time that I’ve been working in the museum that I currently work in.  One of my duties within this museum is to clean the glass around the different displays.  It’s a pretty basic job.  If I see a fingerprint, I spray Windex on it, and wipe it dry.  It’s nothing difficult.

So it’s late one night.  I’m nearing the end of my shift as my coworker and I are waiting for the final few customers to leave.  We are getting ready to do the final cleaning of the night.  This means that all of the windows should be clean, the bathrooms should also be clean, the garbage should be in the dumpster, all that stuff.  I’m about to do the windows.

I go into the storage room to grab the cleaner.  As the door shuts behind me, I turn back to our main lobby.  This was not because I had anything to clean in the lobby.  I wanted to see if the people who were hanging around in there had left.  I was going to be one sad person if we got a late night rush of people coming into the museum.

I get going on my cleaning.  About three exhibits in, I see it.  It’s looking me right in the eye and saying, “I see you there.  I don’t care if you clean me.  You’ve seen me and now this image will be burned into your mind forever.”  You know what?  It was right.  That image is still burned into my mind.

I looked it over very carefully.  There were lip prints on the window.  That’s right, it looked like someone kissed the window.  Only, it didn’t.  There was more.  Under the lip prints was a chin print.  Above the lip prints were cheek marks, and a forehead mark.  All of these were on one window, for one display.  It was a whole face staring right back at me.

Of course I didn’t clean it right away.  Of course I ran back to my coworker who was working in the lobby.  She went to where I told her, looked at the face mark, and started screaming “Ew! Ew! Ew!” as she hurried back to the front.  She grabbed her cell phone and went back to the face to take a picture.  Sadly, the face would not show up on the phone.

But we knew.  And we would always know.  Evermore.

So that’s this edition of Work Stories.  Sorry it’s two days late.  Sometimes life gets in the way, sometimes a television show you watch airs its final episode and it’s really emotional for you.  Either way, there will be another one up on Friday.  You can count on that.