If Those Cubbies Could Talk…
CONTENT WARNING: Animal Death
Our lab has a rack of cubbies by the front door for employees to store small personal supplies in. For security purposes, a person can put a padlock on the cubbies. Over the years, as employees have come and gone, cubbies have become unusable due to padlocks being left behind.
There are no names on the cubbies, and there’s no one taking off the padlocks. A couple of years ago, the last usable cubby got padlocked, and no one has been willing to step forward as the person who padlocked it.
Finally, it was decided that the cubbies should be unlocked and cleaned out. Everyone was told to take home anything in the cubbies that they wanted to keep and their padlocks on Friday. The cubbies were being torn out and replaced with a system of cubbies with built-in electronic locks and PIN numbers assigned to each employee.
When we came back to work on Monday, we were presented with a list, with photos, of finds from the project, including:
- A Motorola Razr from 2004.
- Five Beanie Babies with the nametags from 1995.
- A card, decorated with glue and glitter, that said, “Thank you, Dad”.
- A Ti-92+ calculator from 1999.
- A packet of white powder that tested to be baking soda.
- A 2006 Macbook.
- A copy of The Des Moines Gazette from September 17, 1998.
- A high school report card from the spring of 2006.
- A cut-out magazine photo of a woman using the same scientific equipment we use, but very incorrectly.
- A large number of rare Pokémon and Magic: The Gathering cards. (Later investigation revealed that they were fake and had been made on some of our specialty in-house printers.)
- A blue velvet bag, embroidered with the word “Peanut” in shining purple thread, containing a desiccated/mummified gerbil.
- A small tin containing a set of children’s teeth.
- A Timex Datalink watch.
- An engagement ring with a two-carat diamond in a simple red velvet case.
Other than that, there were a lot of miscellaneous clothing, desiccated snack foods, and small, less interesting electronic devices.
We donated all of it to various local charities, as no one was willing to admit that any of these things belonged to them, and we celebrated our new cubbies!