When I was a little kid I used to love making box forts and pillow forts and blanket forts and fort forts. I was a fort making machine. Now, fort is a technical term. If you're talking to a boring, stuffy old grown-up then it means, you know, that place with all those men and guns hanging about. An NRA meeting? No, silly, army men. If, on the other hand, you're a child, a fort is, well, anything. Fort is the generic term used to describe any play structure created to build one's imagination. When I was very young I was an astronaut (none of that "I'm a pretty princess, come live in my castle crap). As I got older I became a politician. I'm not sure why I needed a fort, as a politician, but the point is that I had one. When I officially, legally entered adulthood (aka: some moron gave me keys to a car), I dropped the fort pretense and decided it was time to move into my own little world full time.
Since then, perhaps my favorite little fantasy adventure has been being a spy. I'm not kidding. When I lived in California and worked at Cisco I used to drive my mother's light blue, two-seater T-Bird convertible to work. That car was zippy. Perfect for an imaginary car chase every morning. San Jose traffic was less conducive to such things, but that's the thing about fantasy - no one said it had to match up. When I got to Michigan I would pretend to receive communiques on my printer. Sometimes I printed off gibberish and walked briskly down the hall with it to see if that aroused suspicion. I have an amazingly rich and interesting fantasy life. Most of it involves me knowing kung-fu.
The thing about being a spy is that, in reality, it is hard work and almost no glory. Unless you're Julia Child. Then its as much about saving the liver as it is about saving your country.
"Your goose is cooked, Adolph Hitler."
As for me, I found my true calling. Lawyering is totally my cup o' tea. That being said, it doesn't change the fact that being a spy is, without question, the coolest possible back-up career in the history of time. Sadly, other than my daily commute/thwarting of a secret international drug ring operating out of Ann Arbor, there is no way for me to be a spy. I mean, its not like there's some... International Spy Museum that operates some special mission that I could go on. No. Wait. Yes there is.
Its called Spy in the City and its an interactive spy mission around Washington DC. You follow clues, answer questions, decode messages and defuse a (fake, I promise) bomb before time runs out. Perhaps the best part, for me at least, was that we actually got to learn some of the techniques used by American espionage agents during the Cold War. Quite frankly, I would imagine the same tactics are being used today since they're darn effective even if people know about them.
The visit to the International Spy Museum was on my first day in DC, which made things a little hectic. I got into town about an hour before the tour started, so we basically only had time to drop my bags in my friend Ben's apartment and immediately leave for the museum. There is a huge gift shop with tons of tributes to spying over the years in the form of books, movies, tee-shirts, and shot glasses. To be quite honest, the museum blew my mind. For a politics and history buff, learning a little about the "secret" history of the country was very neat.
I couldn't be sure if Ben and Lisa were into it though...
We got these incredibly neat, hand-held devices that gave us maps, followed our position via satellite and pointed us toward drop points and secret messages. We had to follow the instructions of a terrorist turned good-guy. See, he was all about the blowing up cities thing in his home country, but apparently he wasn't cool with hitting DC. What was interesting about their choice of scenario is that it illustrated the expediency the government sometimes needs to employ to protect people. What I mean by that is, clearly our "contact" had done some bad stuff. However, he expressed a desire not to hurt innocent people in DC so he became a temporary ally and potential inside contact. It was at that moment that I realized I could never become a spy. There are just too many shades of gray in that field for me. License to kill isn't my speed. I'm more of a "license to drive cautiously in light snowfall" kinda gal.
Going through an figuring out the clues and tracing our contact's secret messages through the city was a ton of fun though. It took us past Ford's Theater, the Navy Memorial, the Newseum, and a couple other neat landmarks before sending us to the "bomb" location. As for spy skills. I will rank us in order from worst to best.
Not Spy Material: Me. I got caught taking pictures, in the spy store, by the spy store special police. If I can't even take basic pictures sneakily then I doubt there is much hope for honest-to-goodness spyifying.
Totally Passable Spy: Lisa. With her innocent face and sincere smile, if she actually had a sneaky bone in her body, she'd be as dangerous as lightning on a golf course. There is, however, not actually a sneaky bone in her body.
Is this the face of a deadly Eastern European double agent?
Spy Extraordinaire: Ben. Here's the thing about Ben. Ben... likes Star Wars. Umm. A lot. Now, there's not a lot of spying in Star Wars, but there is an epic struggle of good versus evil, culminating in the triumph of a ragtag bunch of whoevers against that bald dude with the helmet. Though I can't say for sure, I imagine that while I was building forts and giving blanket political speeches (get it?), Ben was blowing up the Death Star over and over and over again. I think you know where I'm going with this. Ben is Luke Skywalker. And Luke Skywalker handles his business.
Pictured: Ben using the force.
My secret spy gizmo broke, Lisa was unable to diffuse the bomb and Ben... well, Ben's only mistake was listening to my suggestion about which path to take on our mission this one time. So there you have it! My day as a spy was, well, an affirmation of my current career choice at the very least. I absolutely loved the experience though, as much as I tease, and I was really glad to be able to do it with a couple friends who I knew would also enjoy it. The spy museum was very cool and though I know I'm not cut out for true spy work... don't worry... I'll still be imaginary patrolling the imaginary drug shipments into, umm, imaginary Ann Arbor. You have my word.
No comments :
Post a Comment