For uninteresting reasons, I was asked to be at work at 6:00am instead of my usual 7:00am.

As I pulled up to the gate at work, I realized that the gate wouldn’t be staffed for a few more minutes. I was going to back up and drive over to the gate that is staffed 24/7 but by the time that I realized this, there was already someone behind me blocking my way out.

For now, I’d have to use the automatic gate opener which worked by waving my company badge in front of the scanner.

Unfortunately, my badge was in my backpack which was directly behind me in the back seat. Reaching behind me, I was able to unzip the outer pocket and grab my badge. Success!

Not so fast, Steve. The clip for the badge was attached to the badge on a retractable string. And the clip was somehow caught in the backpack’s pocket.

I wasn’t that attached to the clip, so to speak, so I figured that I’d just yank it off and replace it later. This was tougher than I expected. It took a few tries but I got it off with minimal cuts to my hand.

Badge in hand, I could finally open the window, wave the badge at the scanner, and get to work. But since I hadn’t expected to use the scanner, I hadn’t driven my car close enough to use it. I tried waving my badge in the direction of the scanner, but the scanner wasn’t interested.

I put the car in Park (at least I’d learned that from someone else’s mistake), opened the door, got out, waved at the car behind me who hadn’t honked his horn yet, took a couple of steps toward the scanner, waved the badge, and dashed to my car to get thru the gate before the damned thing closed again.

And finally got to work.