Social Engineering 101
I was thirteen when I first got to know first-handedly the bittersweet taste of social engineering. Honestly, the bitter part doesn’t reveal itself until you’re caught doing it. It is power in its most true and pure form. But the context in which I was forced to put it in practice was far from being sweet.
I remember being outside the hospital building, standing in the paved way behind the sidewalk that allowed people to park their cars just time enough to get the sick people inside. Above me, the sky was blue and not even a single cloud could be seen in a radius of what I thought to be miles and miles. It was as hot as it gets in LA. The thirty-four story building in front of me provided shade, but I felt myself damping my own t-shirt with sweat at each passing moment. I could fell the cheap-printed Black Sabbath logo on it sticking to my skin, and the more I thought about pulling it away from my flesh, the more I thought about how it was going to be sticking to it again, until all I wanted was to take the shirt off. It wasn’t going to look pretty, but I would’ve done it if my grandmother was still in that mental health institution, as she was three days before. Just to see if they'd bring me in. It’d be an easy way in - exactly what I needed.
Sadly, this was not an asylum. It was one of those ridiculously expensive places were rich people went to die. The front door looked like it was the entrance to the Hilton. There was even a doorman wearing a weird little hat that the didn’t cover half of his head. Everything was reflective glasses and golden metal, and beautiful people that walked around like they had a rod up their asses. I felt sickened by the faked politesse. It was half the reason why I couldn’t go in without having to find an alternative way to the front door.
Maybe if I threw up, they’d have to bring me in.
I faintly thought about putting my finger down my throat, but the idea was as stupid as taking my shirt off.
With a deep breath, I crossed the ten yards that separated me from the entrance and nodded a hello to weird-hat guy before going in. When I pushed the glass door open a whiff of cooled air met my heated skin and I realized my brain had probably been boiling inside my skull for this whole time. Though more than welcome, the drastic change in temperature chilled my childish thoughts and made me realize I could get in serious trouble for that. I had a loose plan to go in, none to get out - I was hoping I wouldn’t need one -, and I most definitely didn’t need to show up at home escorted by officers. But my aunt’s voice kept ringing in my ears, kept haunting the memories of a spiteful child.
“Mom hates you for what you’ve done. You shouldn’t visit. She’s weak. She’s dying, Sofia. Let her die in peace.”
I had never seen the look my mother had in her eyes that day before, a look that only years later I’d recognize in my own face as the one that acknowledged how much I had fucked up my own life. And worst: I had no idea what all of that was about. As I gripped the strap of my backpack and headed toward the elevators all I knew was that I’d never see my grandmother again, and that my aunt’s money and my mother’s guilt over whatever were the only things stopping me to see her now.
I pressed the button and looked up to the glowing numbers that slowly started to descend from 30, praying for my existence there to be ignored.
It wasn’t.
“Excuse me… Excuse me, hey… Young lady?” Said the woman at the front desk. Her blond hair was so straight and her eyes so blue that she looked exactly like every single Barbie I’ve even seen in a toy store. Put her on a butterfly suit and she’s ready for the shelves. “You can’t go up.”
I was nervous to the point of shaking, but I put more force on the backpack to avoid showing it.
“But I just got down…” I said, with the most confused expression I could make up.
She wouldn’t know. It was lunch-time, the receptionist from the latest shift had just left.
“From what room?” Barbie asked. I had looked that up half an hour before. Called the front desk passing as some authorized family member and said I had forgotten it. I was just as surprised as anyone when it actually worked.
“Thirtieth floor, 3015.” I said. “My aunt asked me to get this bag from the car, you must’ve seen me coming down here, like, two minutes ago.”
Like the last attendant, she must’ve been texting her boyfriend. She wouldn’t have seen me if I was 6”5, had a beard, and had actually been there.
“How old are you?” She questioned.
“Ten.” I lied. Anyone under 12 years old didn’t need a visitor card.
I had no idea if I could still pass as a ten year-old, but it didn’t matter. I was still a kid, and I knew that. People rarely called bullshit on a kid. It was more likely that I was telling the truth, and blondie would have her supervisor flipping his shit over her if I happened to be after she didn’t allow my entrance, or disturbed aunt for nothing.
Barbie held a breath for just a moment, and her nails scratched the center of her palm. At that moment, I found myself enjoying it. Her doubt. Sometimes doubt is all you need.
“Ok, you can go- But… your aunt… What’s her name again?” She asked, still a little skeptical. Not as subtle a test as she thought it was.
“Beatrice.”
Her expression became softer.
“Yes, Beatrice. Could you tell her the doctor have a few things to ask her?”
I smiled widely, amazed and amused. It marveled me that she was trying to be stealthy and that I saw through it. I was smarter than her. I knew things she didn’t.
She blindly trusted a thirteen year old. Who knew what more could I do just telling the right lies? I nodded, slightly shaking in excitement, and the elevator chimed open. As I stepped in and pressed the button, I grinned instantly for having making it.
The grin was short-lived. Barbie had reminded me that I still had to deal with aunt Beatrice.
Or I could just come into the room, Beatrice or not, and talk to my grandmother. Even if just to prove that she couldn’t hold me back.
Before the thought could sink in I was out on the thirtieth story, turning right into the first corridor. My eyes met the golden numbers hanging in the light wood door. The reality of the moment hit me when the adrenaline downed. I had my hands in the doorknob, and gripped it so hard my knuckles turned white.
I had just invaded a hospital, and grandma dying.
Grandma was dying.
A lump formed on my throat and I swallowed it before I could start crying.
When I turned the knob and entered the room, the whole world shifted on its axis.
The calm atmosphere of dimmed lights and bedroom-styled decoration contrasted with the wires attached to grandmother’s body. The skinny old woman lay in bed breathing shallowly the purified air that arrived by the thin, transparent, tabulations that went around her head. There was an IV line attached to her arm. The place was so silent I could hear the hiss of pumped air and the hum of the machines that kept her alive. The sound of the heart monitor was the one thing to scared me at last, though - to know that sometime not far from now its already spaced beeps would stop completely.
But it was all so peaceful I couldn’t feel a thing. It was very real, but, somehow, detached from me. All emotion was vague, drowned by the rush caused by the unusual circumstance in which I found myself.
I heard a sigh, and only then I noticed the leather armchair not three feet from me.
Aunt Beatrice had her eyes fixed on granny, expression wiped of any emotion. I knew she was too drained; too tired and immersed on her own sadness to care about me. I suddenly felt the urge to call mom, but then she would mind it very much. I was not the problem. Not the kid she barely knew, but her own sister.
Too confused to say anything, I stood there, my gaze following her line of sight to rest on my grandmother’s face.
Silence for maybe three minutes before she opened her mouth.
I was expecting harshness and bottled anger, but she was just polite. I hated it.
“How did you got up here?” She asked. By her voice tone, I almost thought her to be bored.
“I have my means.” I said, coldly.
She smiled. And then, a light chuckle.
All of that was confusing. Maybe too much.
“She likes you a lot, you know.” She said, eyes still fixed on the woman lying in the bed. “She used to keep all the good candy in the house hidden for the times you went for a visit.”
I faintly remembered that. Me and mom used to gather at her house for the weekend when I was very, very young. But I did remember her smile as she handed me the small pieces of expensive swiss chocolate in secret very vividly.
Another sigh came from Beatrice.
“You should go, Blair, I really don’t want your mother calling me to ask if you tried to come here.”
I gripped the straps of my bag again.
It was beyond me to understand how could she do that. Wasn’t it supposed to be the contrary? Wasn’t my mom supposed to be here with her, while both of them supported each other thought the period of grief?
I felt like crying again, only, this time, out of anger. Mother wouldn’t see granny again before her death. A part of me had been expecting for aunt to drop the act after seeing me and call her, but now my hopes were definitely gone. I wanted to question her on her decision, on her stubbornness, on her motives, but I didn’t even know what exactly to ask. I’ve heard too much of too little. Where to start?
“Y-yeah, sure.” I murmured instead, my voice cracking. “Let me just...”
Without looking again to Beatrice I took a few steps forward, to reach granny’s bed. And again, I didn’t know what to say. What to do.
The whole situation was more than my childish brain could possibly process.
In an impulse, I touched the old woman’s bony fingers, too scared to do as much as take her hand in mine. I was ready to leave when she opened her eyes.
“Blair...?”
I inhaled sharply.
“Yes, yes, it’s me.”
“Good to see you, kiddo.” She said, not so weakly as I thought she would. “Where’s you mom?”
Tears started prickling my eyes. She didn’t know. She had no idea my mother was being forbidden to enter that room.
“She was here just now, but had to go to the cafeteria to get something to eat.” I lied. And it was so, so easy. Because the truth would be so much worst. “You shouldn’t wait for her to come back, you should rest.”
She made an effort to nod.
“You be a good kid and take care of here, alright? She can’t even find the car keys without you.”
I nod strongly.
Those would be the last words my grandmother ever said to me.
I remember being outside the hospital building, standing in the paved way behind the sidewalk that allowed people to park their cars just time enough to get the sick people inside. Above me, the sky was blue and not even a single cloud could be seen in a radius of what I thought to be miles and miles. It was as hot as it gets in LA. The thirty-four story building in front of me provided shade, but I felt myself damping my own t-shirt with sweat at each passing moment. I could fell the cheap-printed Black Sabbath logo on it sticking to my skin, and the more I thought about pulling it away from my flesh, the more I thought about how it was going to be sticking to it again, until all I wanted was to take the shirt off. It wasn’t going to look pretty, but I would’ve done it if my grandmother was still in that mental health institution, as she was three days before. Just to see if they'd bring me in. It’d be an easy way in - exactly what I needed.
Sadly, this was not an asylum. It was one of those ridiculously expensive places were rich people went to die. The front door looked like it was the entrance to the Hilton. There was even a doorman wearing a weird little hat that the didn’t cover half of his head. Everything was reflective glasses and golden metal, and beautiful people that walked around like they had a rod up their asses. I felt sickened by the faked politesse. It was half the reason why I couldn’t go in without having to find an alternative way to the front door.
Maybe if I threw up, they’d have to bring me in.
I faintly thought about putting my finger down my throat, but the idea was as stupid as taking my shirt off.
With a deep breath, I crossed the ten yards that separated me from the entrance and nodded a hello to weird-hat guy before going in. When I pushed the glass door open a whiff of cooled air met my heated skin and I realized my brain had probably been boiling inside my skull for this whole time. Though more than welcome, the drastic change in temperature chilled my childish thoughts and made me realize I could get in serious trouble for that. I had a loose plan to go in, none to get out - I was hoping I wouldn’t need one -, and I most definitely didn’t need to show up at home escorted by officers. But my aunt’s voice kept ringing in my ears, kept haunting the memories of a spiteful child.
“Mom hates you for what you’ve done. You shouldn’t visit. She’s weak. She’s dying, Sofia. Let her die in peace.”
I had never seen the look my mother had in her eyes that day before, a look that only years later I’d recognize in my own face as the one that acknowledged how much I had fucked up my own life. And worst: I had no idea what all of that was about. As I gripped the strap of my backpack and headed toward the elevators all I knew was that I’d never see my grandmother again, and that my aunt’s money and my mother’s guilt over whatever were the only things stopping me to see her now.
I pressed the button and looked up to the glowing numbers that slowly started to descend from 30, praying for my existence there to be ignored.
It wasn’t.
“Excuse me… Excuse me, hey… Young lady?” Said the woman at the front desk. Her blond hair was so straight and her eyes so blue that she looked exactly like every single Barbie I’ve even seen in a toy store. Put her on a butterfly suit and she’s ready for the shelves. “You can’t go up.”
I was nervous to the point of shaking, but I put more force on the backpack to avoid showing it.
“But I just got down…” I said, with the most confused expression I could make up.
She wouldn’t know. It was lunch-time, the receptionist from the latest shift had just left.
“From what room?” Barbie asked. I had looked that up half an hour before. Called the front desk passing as some authorized family member and said I had forgotten it. I was just as surprised as anyone when it actually worked.
“Thirtieth floor, 3015.” I said. “My aunt asked me to get this bag from the car, you must’ve seen me coming down here, like, two minutes ago.”
Like the last attendant, she must’ve been texting her boyfriend. She wouldn’t have seen me if I was 6”5, had a beard, and had actually been there.
“How old are you?” She questioned.
“Ten.” I lied. Anyone under 12 years old didn’t need a visitor card.
I had no idea if I could still pass as a ten year-old, but it didn’t matter. I was still a kid, and I knew that. People rarely called bullshit on a kid. It was more likely that I was telling the truth, and blondie would have her supervisor flipping his shit over her if I happened to be after she didn’t allow my entrance, or disturbed aunt for nothing.
Barbie held a breath for just a moment, and her nails scratched the center of her palm. At that moment, I found myself enjoying it. Her doubt. Sometimes doubt is all you need.
“Ok, you can go- But… your aunt… What’s her name again?” She asked, still a little skeptical. Not as subtle a test as she thought it was.
“Beatrice.”
Her expression became softer.
“Yes, Beatrice. Could you tell her the doctor have a few things to ask her?”
I smiled widely, amazed and amused. It marveled me that she was trying to be stealthy and that I saw through it. I was smarter than her. I knew things she didn’t.
She blindly trusted a thirteen year old. Who knew what more could I do just telling the right lies? I nodded, slightly shaking in excitement, and the elevator chimed open. As I stepped in and pressed the button, I grinned instantly for having making it.
The grin was short-lived. Barbie had reminded me that I still had to deal with aunt Beatrice.
Or I could just come into the room, Beatrice or not, and talk to my grandmother. Even if just to prove that she couldn’t hold me back.
Before the thought could sink in I was out on the thirtieth story, turning right into the first corridor. My eyes met the golden numbers hanging in the light wood door. The reality of the moment hit me when the adrenaline downed. I had my hands in the doorknob, and gripped it so hard my knuckles turned white.
I had just invaded a hospital, and grandma dying.
Grandma was dying.
A lump formed on my throat and I swallowed it before I could start crying.
When I turned the knob and entered the room, the whole world shifted on its axis.
The calm atmosphere of dimmed lights and bedroom-styled decoration contrasted with the wires attached to grandmother’s body. The skinny old woman lay in bed breathing shallowly the purified air that arrived by the thin, transparent, tabulations that went around her head. There was an IV line attached to her arm. The place was so silent I could hear the hiss of pumped air and the hum of the machines that kept her alive. The sound of the heart monitor was the one thing to scared me at last, though - to know that sometime not far from now its already spaced beeps would stop completely.
But it was all so peaceful I couldn’t feel a thing. It was very real, but, somehow, detached from me. All emotion was vague, drowned by the rush caused by the unusual circumstance in which I found myself.
I heard a sigh, and only then I noticed the leather armchair not three feet from me.
Aunt Beatrice had her eyes fixed on granny, expression wiped of any emotion. I knew she was too drained; too tired and immersed on her own sadness to care about me. I suddenly felt the urge to call mom, but then she would mind it very much. I was not the problem. Not the kid she barely knew, but her own sister.
Too confused to say anything, I stood there, my gaze following her line of sight to rest on my grandmother’s face.
Silence for maybe three minutes before she opened her mouth.
I was expecting harshness and bottled anger, but she was just polite. I hated it.
“How did you got up here?” She asked. By her voice tone, I almost thought her to be bored.
“I have my means.” I said, coldly.
She smiled. And then, a light chuckle.
All of that was confusing. Maybe too much.
“She likes you a lot, you know.” She said, eyes still fixed on the woman lying in the bed. “She used to keep all the good candy in the house hidden for the times you went for a visit.”
I faintly remembered that. Me and mom used to gather at her house for the weekend when I was very, very young. But I did remember her smile as she handed me the small pieces of expensive swiss chocolate in secret very vividly.
Another sigh came from Beatrice.
“You should go, Blair, I really don’t want your mother calling me to ask if you tried to come here.”
I gripped the straps of my bag again.
It was beyond me to understand how could she do that. Wasn’t it supposed to be the contrary? Wasn’t my mom supposed to be here with her, while both of them supported each other thought the period of grief?
I felt like crying again, only, this time, out of anger. Mother wouldn’t see granny again before her death. A part of me had been expecting for aunt to drop the act after seeing me and call her, but now my hopes were definitely gone. I wanted to question her on her decision, on her stubbornness, on her motives, but I didn’t even know what exactly to ask. I’ve heard too much of too little. Where to start?
“Y-yeah, sure.” I murmured instead, my voice cracking. “Let me just...”
Without looking again to Beatrice I took a few steps forward, to reach granny’s bed. And again, I didn’t know what to say. What to do.
The whole situation was more than my childish brain could possibly process.
In an impulse, I touched the old woman’s bony fingers, too scared to do as much as take her hand in mine. I was ready to leave when she opened her eyes.
“Blair...?”
I inhaled sharply.
“Yes, yes, it’s me.”
“Good to see you, kiddo.” She said, not so weakly as I thought she would. “Where’s you mom?”
Tears started prickling my eyes. She didn’t know. She had no idea my mother was being forbidden to enter that room.
“She was here just now, but had to go to the cafeteria to get something to eat.” I lied. And it was so, so easy. Because the truth would be so much worst. “You shouldn’t wait for her to come back, you should rest.”
She made an effort to nod.
“You be a good kid and take care of here, alright? She can’t even find the car keys without you.”
I nod strongly.
Those would be the last words my grandmother ever said to me.