Posts Tagged ‘security’

He got carded

Monday, November 21st, 2011

By Tiber　

As you know, this house is so big and with so many people working here, even the staff members have become family.

 So the security guys are still with us, even though Dad can’t afford to pay anybody what they were getting before. Glad as I am to have them, the security guys can still be sort of intimidating. Which I guess is the point.

Anyway, Ben is the head man and I think we all know his Achilles’ heel now.

As a former member of Mossad, Ben could probably kill you differently every day of the week. But recently it was his birthday. And the only card my mother could find in the house was a grossly sentimental one.

So she went ahead and presented it to him.

So overcome was Ben by my mother’s kindness and that “sweet leetle bunny” on the card, that he burst into tears and fled to the bathroom.

So you see, I know now that even I could bring Mr. Tough Guy down if I wanted.

I figure one of those big-eyed plushy toys wrapped in Hello Kitty paper would do it.

Yeah. I’ve still got it.

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Posted in Holidays, security | No Comments »

Go, gym dandy

Thursday, September 9th, 2010

By Tiber

Even with the money disappearing around here, Dad still doesn’t want to have to fire anybody on the staff and God knows, nobody on staff wants to be fired. Positions for household employees have been disappearing since the Edwardian Age.

So now, everybody is starting to barter, as if we’re all living in the Bronze Age.

One of the things Dad has offered to everyone, for a reduction in salary, is full access to our well-equipped gym up here on the third floor.

I don’t mind this in theory, except that now whenever I go in, day or night, at least one member of Dad’s security team is already there, working out again. Why are they still doing this?!? Short of popping their heads off to allow for expansion, they can’t get any bigger. And they’re only making me feel smaller and smaller.

At first I was grateful that at least old Brunty, the butler, was in there occasionally too. He’s whatever the opposite of “toned” would be but now even his presence is ending up intimidating me.

He keeps falling asleep at whatever machine he’s on. And eventually, a security guy ends up wanting the same machine and he has to pick Brunty up and move him away. The guys have realized that moving him never wakes him up so they’ve just incorporated lifting Brunty into their regular routine.

And now I feel worse than ever. I can‘t compete with them. I can’t outlast them. And there’s no way, even going for just thirty seconds, that I can bench press a butler without breaking a sweat.

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Posted in the bad economy | No Comments »

Stop or I’ll shoe!

Monday, July 19th, 2010

By Tiber

As he’s doing with everybody on the payroll here, Dad put his newly money-conscious eye on the cost of his live-in security team. He’d been talked into hiring three men so they could work in shifts. I always felt they just wanted a better poker game.

In any event, Dad decided that, really, with so many family members living here, maybe we could just protect the estate ourselves. He really likes the security guys, though, and it was with real regret that he finally let them go.

And of course, that very night, we were attacked. Well, by “attacked,” I mean there was the sound of an invasion. Sort of.

It later turned out to be just a raccoon making this high-pitched squealing. About a third of the household thought Duncan’s daughters were being attacked which was horrific. A third thought gentle Iris Nell was being attacked which was terrifying. And a third thought I was being attacked which was just plain rude.

You may remember, when the security guys accidentally came after me a few months ago, thinking I was an intruder, I defended myself with jelly beans. (Which I still maintain was the best thing I had available!)

This time, at the onset of this true attack, and with no security people to handle it, the entire household sprang into action and raced outside with a highly effective cache of defensive weapons consisting of a green flip-flop, a tea cup, a ruler, a beach ball, a knitting needle, a Slinky, a stapler, a nose trimmer, a bottle of black nail polish, a Harry Potter wand, one chop stick, a headless Beanie Baby, and a Prada handbag.

Even Cook, the one person who could have immediately grabbed a clutch of knives panicked and ran out brandishing only a melonballer.

Dad realized right then he was going to have to hire the security guys back. Next time, it might be a slightly bigger animal on the property. The security guys responded to Dad’s call so quickly, frankly, I think they were waiting right outside the front gate.

Not only that, now that I think about it, my guess is, they were the ones also tickling that raccoon.

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Lights! Camera! Moron!

Friday, October 30th, 2009

By Tiber

Still hiding out in my old bedroom at my parents’ estate, I suddenly saw shadows crossing my balcony. My room is three stories up, so this was not good. My mother’s billion-thread-count sheets almost counted something else on them because suddenly, two men burst through the balcony doors while a third man came crashing through my bedroom door.

Life gives you very few moments that define you as a man. Or somethng else. With only seconds to respond, how you react shows the world what you’re made of.

Me? I measured up the size, the strength, the firepower of my assassins…and I threw jelly beans at them. And they put down their guns!

Okay, fine, it was only because they recognized me. It was my father’s security team. But hear me out! My instincts were spot-on. I had accurately assessed the situation with robot-like precision, given the response weaponry available to me at the time. I knew the cake was too soft. And the chips, though aerodynamically sound for a short flight, could never go the distance.

So jelly beans were the correct choice, carrying with them a true stinging capability as well as every mother’s nightmare of “putting someone’s eye out.”

I could see that none of my bulls-eye decisions were being credited by these guys, though. To them, my great defense was lobbing tiny sweets at them. Charge!

“Meester Tiber! I am so sorry!”

This was from Ben, Dad’s Israeli head of security.

“We caught a man on the geem cam!” (that would be the security camera in the third- floor gym that I thought was turned off.)

They all shuffled out, trying to look serious. Of course, I knew they were just trying not to laugh. Ben says he won’t tell my father I’ve moved back home, which may or may not be true.

What I know for sure, however, is that from now on, my security code-name’s going to be “candy-ass.”

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