Strange things are afoot at the Circle-K...
I haven't been getting out as much as I would like, lately, as one family/social obligation just keeps stacking up on another. My weekends have been/are largely a joke.
I didn't have a lot of energy, but I did find a couple free hours after dinner last night, so I thought I would get out and see if I could get a good angle or two on the most recent bridge malfunction since it was so close to my house. Because Minneapolis: We Know Bridges! Holla!
The idea was that I wasn't going to be able to get much, so I would bring a small crowbar I use as a manhole popper and poke around the neighborhood a bit on the way home. As it happens, I forgot the popper, so I picked up a beer and committed to taking more pics instead.
I got what I could (haven't had a chance to review yet) and decided to make my way home. I'd forgotten my popper, but there were a couple manholes I thought I could at least take a look at on my way home. As much as I want to be doing this kind of thing more often, I really haven't done hardly any random manhole inspections. I can only think of two other times I've actually investigated/opened a random manhole.
So I came to a field that I thought would be a good place to start and I scanned the fresh snow in the dark. Sure enough, I found a melted spot indicating a manhole and headed over to it. There was a rock carefully placed to cover the only hole in the lid. Without really thinking about it, at first, I kicked it off. And then the placement of the rock struck me as odd. Now a lot of manhole covers have multiple holes for venting and such. These are easier to look into with a flashlight because you put your eye on one hole and a light in the other and you're good. This one only had one hole, so I didn't figure I'd be able to see anything, but I got down on my belly just the same to check it out.
I stuck my light in the hole and got my eye as close as I could and peered inside.
It took a moment to adjust, but I could make out thick, rusted rungs going down to a floor about six or eight feet below. Three inlets/outlets that looked too small to be human-traversable branched off inside. A blue and green nylon messenger bag lay at the foot of the rungs.
And I was all, like, "Wait, what??" There were no marks other than my own in the snow that fell the previous night and there didn't appear to be any way to get it there from inside. (I don't think it could have washed in via the pipes I could see.) And it looked reasonably new-ish.
So I took another, closer look. And that's when I found the giant dog (I assume) skull laying against another wall of the chamber. (And I use that term very loosely.) And I was all, like, "The fuck???"
I looked around briefly for something I could improvise to get the lid open but eventually gave up. I walked the six or so blocks home, filled Dawny in, traded out some of my camera nonsense for manhole nonsense, and ran back out into the night. Passing the beer store just before closing time, I grabbed another and made the trek back towards my hole.
Arriving near the property, I discovered that I had to relieve myself. Finding what appeared to be a suitable snow bank, I propped my beer out of the way and proceeded to pee up the joint. A tan minivan pulled into the lot and I thought to myself, "That's some great timing, right there!" and gave a disarming "oops, sorry" smile while I finished up my business. The van pulled up and parked right behind me and some dude walked out towards me. "Can I help you?" I asked, wondering what his deal was.
His diminutive partner came around from the other side as he gave me a hard look and said, "We're cops."
"Ohhh..." A quick inventory of my surroundings revealed that I was guilty of only two things: Public Urination and Honking About with an Open Beer. If searched, they could add Carrying Conspicuously Weird Shit to my litany of offences. My attitude made a drastic, and apparently alarming, shift. "That's great, actually! I was just coming back to look in a hole to find out if I needed to call you guys!" [Insert Triumphant and Exuberant (read as: 'Tardy) Smile Here.]
"Um... what?"
We got the formalities out of the way. I showed them where my pocket knife was and offered my bag for their perusal. (Male Cop was trying to look at it while I was wearing it. I was all, like, "Here, just take it, this will be a lot easier.") I basically bent over for them because I had nothing to hide and was, in fact, fully prepared to call the cops myself if The Stuff in The Bag got too weird. They explained that they were on the burglary detail and that there had been a series of "rooftop burglaries" in the area - people stealing industrial air conditioners. None of which I had on my person. When it was my turn, I began to explain, with excited gestures, about the hole I found.
"Wait... what?"
"It's right over there!"
"You're not playing us, are you? Because sometimes when we catch someone in the act, they make up stories to divert us..."
"But this story's really specific, right?"
"Well, yeah..."
"And it's weird, too!"
"It's definitely weird..."
"And it can all be confirmed right in the middle of that field right there, so..." Everything else aside, I really wanted to know what was in that goddamn hole and I figured with CopHelp, it would be no problem at all!
The smaller cop, still trying to wrap her head around me looked up from my bag again and asked, "Why are you just walking around with all this stuff again?"
"I wasn't just walking around with it, I had to go back home to get it to look at the hole. Could I show you the hole now?"
"Why were you looking in the manhole in the first place?"
"I was just walking by and I happened to see it. I had a light, and I was curious..." A bit of a stretch, but pretty close to the truth. "Then I thought I should come back and open it up and see what was going on. See if it required police involvement, you know?"
"Why would you do that?"
"I don't know, I was trying to do my civic duty?"
They were still pretty clearly convinced that I was a lunatic, but they eventually humored me and into the field we went.
You could kind of feel them relaxing into things a bit at a time as one piece of my story after another was confirmed. Only my own set of footprints (and bellyprints) around a bare manhole cover in the middle of the snowy field. The rock I had explained kicking off of exactly the spot where the hole in the lid was. The male cop was still a little sketched out. "Ok, you're sure you're not going to kick me in the head as soon as I get down on the ground?"
I backed a good four steps further back, raising my arms. "Positive. No kicking tonight."
He pulled out his light, but the head of it was too big to shine into the hole and look at the same time, though he made a decent effort of it. After his partner teased him about his $15 Wal-Mart special, I offered him my own light and back to the hole he went.
"Huh! Well, you're mostly right, there is a bag in there, but there's no skull."
I think my jaw actually bounced off my chest. "Really??? Can I look?" Because there really weren't any fresh tracks in the snow other than from my initial visit. Turns out he'd just missed it. I got back up and directed him where to look and then he agreed.
They were still pretty interested in me, though. They asked my name again and where I lived, to which I gave them more specific answers this time. They decided that as long as they had me, they wanted to run a check on me and asked for my ID. I was back to thinking about the bag again, so without thinking about it, I was in the process of handing over my entire wallet when I suddenly thought of something and pulled my hand back. "You know, you guys never actually showed me any proof that you're cops. Do you mind?" They lifted their jackets to reveal very shiny, and very real-looking badges. "Ok, here you go. Can I get your names?"
Male Cop: "Lieutenant Something-or-other."
NotBatman: "I'm never going to remember that."
Female Cop: "Officer Carbough" (or something like that.)
NotBatman: "And Officer Car-Bomb, I can remember that -- oooh! Was that offensive? I'm sorry, I..."
Officer Car-Bomb: "It's ok."
Lieutenant Something-or-other: "So let's go back to the car..."
NotBatman: "Actually, would you guys mind if I got to work on this while you do that? I really want to find out what's going on, you know?"
Lieutenant Something-or-other: "Sure, I guess. Just don't forget we have your knife and ID and wander off, or anything."
NotBatman: "I won't forget. You have my beer over there! -- Oh..." I became disappoint. "I'm not getting that beer back, am I?"
They exchanged looks, said something non-committal (or at least something I don't quite remember) and went back to their minivan while I set to work on the lid. Now as I've said, I haven't popped a lot of manholes, but I've popped a few and I've let others use the same tools to pop a few more. So I know my tools, half-assed as they may be, work.
The lid would not budge, not even a little bit. Pulling from the middle in the traditional manner quickly became a laughable notion, so I started working my way around the edges, prying at the sides of it. Attempting to pry it up resulted in me breaking the end off of my crowbar. Lieutenant Something-or-other approached while I was working and didn't really say anything other than "Here's your stuff, your beer's still over there. Try not to get caught again tonight, ok?"
I was more than just surprised that they were going to leave without seeing this through. "I'll do my best. You'll stand up for me if I do, though, right? Lieutenant... BurglaryCop?"
"We'll vouch for you if it comes up. I'd tell you to leave, but you'd probably just end up right back here again anyway, right?"
"Yeah, probably," I grinned.
From the car, Officer Car-Bomb called out, "You really are a weirdo, you know that?"
I waved back to her and called out, "I know, right? Thanks for being awesome, guys! I really appreciate it!" and went back to work.
I did some more digging and scraping at the sides of the lid. I tried prying it up again with the broken part of my crowbar. I wedged the shaft in the hole in the middle and tried to push hard enough to get it to do something and simply bent the shaft of the crowbar. My other tool, an odd bike-hanging thingy, fared even worse. As near as I can figure, the new snow fell, the warmth from the underground melted said snow, the water trickled into the space between the metal lid and the collar it sits in and then froze there when the temperature dropped?
I took another look down into the hole, I even wandered around a bit looking for something I could use, but in the end had to head back home again. As much as I wanted to, it was just too late to go back out again, even if I did find something that might be more suitable.
In the Immortal Words of Captain Kirk: "It's a mystery! I don't like mysteries, they give me a bellyache. And I've got a real beauty right now."
I've got to find a way to open that hole. What the fuck is in the bag? Stacks of money? Drugs? The rest of the dog? Is the "dog" skull really a ghoul skull and is, like, The Necronomicon or Cultes des Goules or some other bomb-ass mythos tome in the bag? (Will one of said tomes be placed in the bag after I manage to get down there and discover the truth is boring?)
Adventure Time!
I didn't have a lot of energy, but I did find a couple free hours after dinner last night, so I thought I would get out and see if I could get a good angle or two on the most recent bridge malfunction since it was so close to my house. Because Minneapolis: We Know Bridges! Holla!
The idea was that I wasn't going to be able to get much, so I would bring a small crowbar I use as a manhole popper and poke around the neighborhood a bit on the way home. As it happens, I forgot the popper, so I picked up a beer and committed to taking more pics instead.
I got what I could (haven't had a chance to review yet) and decided to make my way home. I'd forgotten my popper, but there were a couple manholes I thought I could at least take a look at on my way home. As much as I want to be doing this kind of thing more often, I really haven't done hardly any random manhole inspections. I can only think of two other times I've actually investigated/opened a random manhole.
So I came to a field that I thought would be a good place to start and I scanned the fresh snow in the dark. Sure enough, I found a melted spot indicating a manhole and headed over to it. There was a rock carefully placed to cover the only hole in the lid. Without really thinking about it, at first, I kicked it off. And then the placement of the rock struck me as odd. Now a lot of manhole covers have multiple holes for venting and such. These are easier to look into with a flashlight because you put your eye on one hole and a light in the other and you're good. This one only had one hole, so I didn't figure I'd be able to see anything, but I got down on my belly just the same to check it out.
I stuck my light in the hole and got my eye as close as I could and peered inside.
It took a moment to adjust, but I could make out thick, rusted rungs going down to a floor about six or eight feet below. Three inlets/outlets that looked too small to be human-traversable branched off inside. A blue and green nylon messenger bag lay at the foot of the rungs.
And I was all, like, "Wait, what??" There were no marks other than my own in the snow that fell the previous night and there didn't appear to be any way to get it there from inside. (I don't think it could have washed in via the pipes I could see.) And it looked reasonably new-ish.
So I took another, closer look. And that's when I found the giant dog (I assume) skull laying against another wall of the chamber. (And I use that term very loosely.) And I was all, like, "The fuck???"
I looked around briefly for something I could improvise to get the lid open but eventually gave up. I walked the six or so blocks home, filled Dawny in, traded out some of my camera nonsense for manhole nonsense, and ran back out into the night. Passing the beer store just before closing time, I grabbed another and made the trek back towards my hole.
Arriving near the property, I discovered that I had to relieve myself. Finding what appeared to be a suitable snow bank, I propped my beer out of the way and proceeded to pee up the joint. A tan minivan pulled into the lot and I thought to myself, "That's some great timing, right there!" and gave a disarming "oops, sorry" smile while I finished up my business. The van pulled up and parked right behind me and some dude walked out towards me. "Can I help you?" I asked, wondering what his deal was.
His diminutive partner came around from the other side as he gave me a hard look and said, "We're cops."
"Ohhh..." A quick inventory of my surroundings revealed that I was guilty of only two things: Public Urination and Honking About with an Open Beer. If searched, they could add Carrying Conspicuously Weird Shit to my litany of offences. My attitude made a drastic, and apparently alarming, shift. "That's great, actually! I was just coming back to look in a hole to find out if I needed to call you guys!" [Insert Triumphant and Exuberant (read as: 'Tardy) Smile Here.]
"Um... what?"
We got the formalities out of the way. I showed them where my pocket knife was and offered my bag for their perusal. (Male Cop was trying to look at it while I was wearing it. I was all, like, "Here, just take it, this will be a lot easier.") I basically bent over for them because I had nothing to hide and was, in fact, fully prepared to call the cops myself if The Stuff in The Bag got too weird. They explained that they were on the burglary detail and that there had been a series of "rooftop burglaries" in the area - people stealing industrial air conditioners. None of which I had on my person. When it was my turn, I began to explain, with excited gestures, about the hole I found.
"Wait... what?"
"It's right over there!"
"You're not playing us, are you? Because sometimes when we catch someone in the act, they make up stories to divert us..."
"But this story's really specific, right?"
"Well, yeah..."
"And it's weird, too!"
"It's definitely weird..."
"And it can all be confirmed right in the middle of that field right there, so..." Everything else aside, I really wanted to know what was in that goddamn hole and I figured with CopHelp, it would be no problem at all!
The smaller cop, still trying to wrap her head around me looked up from my bag again and asked, "Why are you just walking around with all this stuff again?"
"I wasn't just walking around with it, I had to go back home to get it to look at the hole. Could I show you the hole now?"
"Why were you looking in the manhole in the first place?"
"I was just walking by and I happened to see it. I had a light, and I was curious..." A bit of a stretch, but pretty close to the truth. "Then I thought I should come back and open it up and see what was going on. See if it required police involvement, you know?"
"Why would you do that?"
"I don't know, I was trying to do my civic duty?"
They were still pretty clearly convinced that I was a lunatic, but they eventually humored me and into the field we went.
You could kind of feel them relaxing into things a bit at a time as one piece of my story after another was confirmed. Only my own set of footprints (and bellyprints) around a bare manhole cover in the middle of the snowy field. The rock I had explained kicking off of exactly the spot where the hole in the lid was. The male cop was still a little sketched out. "Ok, you're sure you're not going to kick me in the head as soon as I get down on the ground?"
I backed a good four steps further back, raising my arms. "Positive. No kicking tonight."
He pulled out his light, but the head of it was too big to shine into the hole and look at the same time, though he made a decent effort of it. After his partner teased him about his $15 Wal-Mart special, I offered him my own light and back to the hole he went.
"Huh! Well, you're mostly right, there is a bag in there, but there's no skull."
I think my jaw actually bounced off my chest. "Really??? Can I look?" Because there really weren't any fresh tracks in the snow other than from my initial visit. Turns out he'd just missed it. I got back up and directed him where to look and then he agreed.
They were still pretty interested in me, though. They asked my name again and where I lived, to which I gave them more specific answers this time. They decided that as long as they had me, they wanted to run a check on me and asked for my ID. I was back to thinking about the bag again, so without thinking about it, I was in the process of handing over my entire wallet when I suddenly thought of something and pulled my hand back. "You know, you guys never actually showed me any proof that you're cops. Do you mind?" They lifted their jackets to reveal very shiny, and very real-looking badges. "Ok, here you go. Can I get your names?"
Male Cop: "Lieutenant Something-or-other."
NotBatman: "I'm never going to remember that."
Female Cop: "Officer Carbough" (or something like that.)
NotBatman: "And Officer Car-Bomb, I can remember that -- oooh! Was that offensive? I'm sorry, I..."
Officer Car-Bomb: "It's ok."
Lieutenant Something-or-other: "So let's go back to the car..."
NotBatman: "Actually, would you guys mind if I got to work on this while you do that? I really want to find out what's going on, you know?"
Lieutenant Something-or-other: "Sure, I guess. Just don't forget we have your knife and ID and wander off, or anything."
NotBatman: "I won't forget. You have my beer over there! -- Oh..." I became disappoint. "I'm not getting that beer back, am I?"
They exchanged looks, said something non-committal (or at least something I don't quite remember) and went back to their minivan while I set to work on the lid. Now as I've said, I haven't popped a lot of manholes, but I've popped a few and I've let others use the same tools to pop a few more. So I know my tools, half-assed as they may be, work.
The lid would not budge, not even a little bit. Pulling from the middle in the traditional manner quickly became a laughable notion, so I started working my way around the edges, prying at the sides of it. Attempting to pry it up resulted in me breaking the end off of my crowbar. Lieutenant Something-or-other approached while I was working and didn't really say anything other than "Here's your stuff, your beer's still over there. Try not to get caught again tonight, ok?"
I was more than just surprised that they were going to leave without seeing this through. "I'll do my best. You'll stand up for me if I do, though, right? Lieutenant... BurglaryCop?"
"We'll vouch for you if it comes up. I'd tell you to leave, but you'd probably just end up right back here again anyway, right?"
"Yeah, probably," I grinned.
From the car, Officer Car-Bomb called out, "You really are a weirdo, you know that?"
I waved back to her and called out, "I know, right? Thanks for being awesome, guys! I really appreciate it!" and went back to work.
I did some more digging and scraping at the sides of the lid. I tried prying it up again with the broken part of my crowbar. I wedged the shaft in the hole in the middle and tried to push hard enough to get it to do something and simply bent the shaft of the crowbar. My other tool, an odd bike-hanging thingy, fared even worse. As near as I can figure, the new snow fell, the warmth from the underground melted said snow, the water trickled into the space between the metal lid and the collar it sits in and then froze there when the temperature dropped?
I took another look down into the hole, I even wandered around a bit looking for something I could use, but in the end had to head back home again. As much as I wanted to, it was just too late to go back out again, even if I did find something that might be more suitable.
In the Immortal Words of Captain Kirk: "It's a mystery! I don't like mysteries, they give me a bellyache. And I've got a real beauty right now."
I've got to find a way to open that hole. What the fuck is in the bag? Stacks of money? Drugs? The rest of the dog? Is the "dog" skull really a ghoul skull and is, like, The Necronomicon or Cultes des Goules or some other bomb-ass mythos tome in the bag? (Will one of said tomes be placed in the bag after I manage to get down there and discover the truth is boring?)
Adventure Time!