Next Time, Bring a Ladder.

We expected that the trip would take an hour and a half with good traffic. The time of day, the day of the week, we expected to NOT see good traffic, so we gave it extra time.

We were obscenely early.

So my husband did what he usually does; he passed the extra minutes perusing tidbits of information on his glowing device. I did what I usually do and looked around while I sat.

This is, in my mind, a self-defense move. I've watched quite a few western, karate, and spy movies in my time. In none of them was the protagonist surprise-attacked by a glowing device he held in his hand. He's always attacked by someone from the surrounding environment. So I always check my environment. The glowing device is usually pretty boring, anyway.

The crown molding was lovely in this old building. Maintenance was doing a bang-up job here. Except for that kick plate on the French door going into the conference room. A piece was broken off one end. Just cosmetic, unlike the drain pipe issue we noticed on our way into the building. They need to get that repaired before the foundation is affected by rainwater pooling in the wrong places. The inside was clean and spotlessly dusted.

Oy, what's that? That's a strange-looking mark on the inside of the sconce. Nice sconce, though. But what is that mark?

I turn to my husband.

"Did they use a bulb too hot for the fixture or are those dead bugs?" I asked.

My husband posited, "It looks like a dead mouse."

"Now I want to get a ladder and look," I said.

"Don't climb on the chair," he replied.

"No, if I was going to do that I would have already," I told him. "And I would have taken off my shoes. But it's not stable enough; too much padding."

"We should have thought ahead," he said.

"Yes," I replied. "We should have brought a ladder with us, in case we needed to look inside our new attorney's sconces."

"Next time," he said.

"Yes, next time," I agreed. "We'll bring a ladder."