Back in the Ricoh field service days I always seemed to have a large territory. Living in the Atlanta area, I covered east to Augusta and west to Birmingham. When a call came in from Birmingham that I could not clear via telephone, I knew it was a minimum 6-7 (including travel) hour event.
One day I had a service call in Birmingham that should not have required anything more than a relatively quick trip into the account to repair, then grab a sandwich and eat during the drive back to Atlanta. Right...
As luck would have it, I had gotten a good description of the real issue with the fax machine from a temp who was in for the day. My regular contact was out sick. What I didn't know is that the machine had been moved into a different location within the office. It had gone from the receptionist's desk to a small storeroom where dusty conditions prevailed, and it had apparently been in there for a long time already.
When I saw the equipment I immediately knew I would be there longer than I originally planned, due to the amount of dust I found in the machine. It had to be torn apart pretty significantly to remove the dust balls from the mirrors and other parts of the optics path.
Somewhere during the repair process, my stomach started feeling funny, and I realized I needed to release some pressure. In other words, I had to fart.
Normally this would not be an issue, but I had the machine apart in such a way that I was not comfortable leaving it in that condition unless it was a REAL emergency. Complicating matters was the seemingly endless number of people streaming in and out to get supplies.
After a while of concentrating on the equipment, I happened to notice that no one had come in for quite a bit. I glanced at my watch and noticed it was now lunchtime in the central time zone. Whew! Nobody should be coming in for at least half an hour, so I figured I had time to do the deed and make a getaway.
After waiting about five more minutes just to be sure no one would walk in during the event, I let 'er rip. Just as I finished letting it fly, the door opened and an elderly woman walked in. Before I could even say hi, she made a face and exclaimed "Whew! It's stale in here."
Now I must admit it was everything I could do to keep myself from laughing out loud, so I quickly made up something about a chemical I used to clean the machine. Not exactly like paint thinner, perhaps more like a paint peeler.
I can't swear for sure, but I think she held her breath the rest of the time she was in there. After hurriedly retrieving what she came for, she exited the room. I counted to 10 and then couldn't hold back the laughter anymore. I imagined she was heading back for a quick hit from her oxygen tank. I managed to make it out of there before anyone else entered "The Chamber of Death", and never had to return to this customer due to transferring to a different division within Ricoh.
