Thursday, February 2, 2012

An Unsolved Mystery

It’s Thursday night in the duplex.  It’s a quiet evening on the campus of TAA, in the distance I can hear the sound of a motorcycle revving up his small by high-strung engine for no apparent reason other than to have someone like me notice and maybe write about it in his blog.  I can hear the hum of the florescent light casting its eye-empowering light on the laptop keyboard serving as the medium of my evening’s communication to the number-challenged but mighty contingent of readers of my humble blog.

The day was mostly uneventful.  The president was sick most of the day.  He made an appearance late in the afternoon to take care of some indispensible work that apparently could only be cared for with his presence in the office.  I met with WT, who is the liaison with the Renaissance Network.  We had lunch together and had a meeting with the school business manager to discuss challenges that could possibly become problems if not addressed appropriately.  Some are simply growing pains related to a highly motivated, but independently confident group of volunteer workers who are doing some of the preliminary tasks prior to the arrival of the main Maranatha contingent of volunteers for the major project.  It’s funny to see interpersonal dynamics go awry over minor or otherwise solvable dilemmas.

The mysterious pictures that had appeared in the conference office over the last two days disappeared as suddenly as they showed up.  They went through quite a metamorphosis before they vanished.  It became the talk of the office and a lot of spontaneous laughter.  The first pictures were nothing but pirated photocopies of a black and white picture of my face sporting the bad haircut.  I removed that edition quickly but never pinpointed who was the culprit behind the unauthorized postings.

The next morning a totally different head shot of yours truly made an appearance.  This one portrayed me with what can best be described as a mane.  I was wearing a set of my signature Ray Ban Aviators.  There was a caption of the question “Is This Better?”  That one caused a stir since it was on the walls when everyone arrived in the morning.  Most people believed I was the one responsible for this bit of mischief.  If I was, I would not ruin it by admitting to it.  I just flowed with the punches.  My intent was to clear the walls of this less than flattering picture (as if such a picture exists) at a more opportune time.  This was not to be.

Upon my return from lunch I was bombarded by a third edition in the series—this one took the cake!  New variations of the first edition of portraits had been edited by an unknown artist into a broad variety of comical poses including but not limited to a rabbi, a hippie, a boy in a beanie, a pirate, a momma’s boy, a freak, and a pimple-faced, adolescent.  The cartoonish edits were done in color for a fuller effect.  The mystery was broadened to include many suspects but no indictments.

Then upon my return from my afternoon meetings they were gone.  No one was willing to break the code of silence that protected the guilty party.  I fear the series of creative portraits may appear again at a later date.  I am trying not to be paranoid.  I hope they don’t show up on Facebook!  I should go check…good night!  (225.0)

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