Mall Cop

I remember that July as if it were yesterday. It was many years ago---just before I joined the C.I.A.---I was hired as a Pinkerton security guard in Cleveland (thank God my uniform wasn't pink). My supervisor wasn't the sharpest pseudo-cop on the block; he issued me a pistol with only one bullet, and assigned me to guard a large factory. When I arrived at the factory, one of the managers called me to his office to tell me that I quickly had to move some of the workers' cars on their parking lot to make room for more incoming workers, and he gave me the keys to several vehicles.

After some twenty minutes of frustration in those cars, I walked in confusion back into the manager's office. "Did you move those cars?" he asked.

"Er, no," I replied, "I can't find the blasted keyhole on the dashboard of any of them. I can't figure it out."

He erupted in laughter. It was the year the ignition keyhole on many cars had been moved from the dashboard to the steering column. I then had to bear the embarrassment of ridicule from the workers after he immediately told them of my ignorance. For the rest of the afternoon, I contemplated that one bullet.

-Old Gargoyle