Strangely reptilian was security

I like the new security guards one of our local banks has hired to protect its grounds after hours.

They are vigilant.

I had to drop off a deposit bag after hours (full of little of nothing) and I spotted them as soon as I turned off the road into the parking lot.

As long as I remained on a normally-travelled path, they had little problem with me being on the premises.

I guess you could say we had an unspoken understanding.

I drove through the drive-through area (as I’m told I’m supposed to do), stopped and dropped the bag in the night deposit.

The guards were unobtrusive, maintaining their vigilance from a distance.

I remained at the night drop maybe a few moments longer than the guards thought prudent. They began to stir in a somewhat menacing fashion.

I shot off the phone, decided that dialing home would be best accomplished later, and pulled out of the drive-through.

To exit the bank, I either have to turn back onto the highway and make two unnecessary turns to get back in the right direction, or I have to swing around behind the building to the auxiliary exit.

This where the cadre of security guards and I began to have a little bit of a problem.

Apparently, they aren’t fond of people who swing around behind the building. That tells me that’s where they hide the good stuff.

Two of them got underway, attempting to shepherd me out the front exit to the highway.

I am a stubborn sort and I didn’t want to go that way.

So I turned into the drive that takes me behind the building.

You would have thought I was attempting to invade a Presidential motorcade. Two of the guards broke off their own patrol routes and fell in running beside my vehicle. Had I turned slightly either to left or right, I would have run the risk of running down one or the other.

And like most security personnel, they were so similar as to be indistinguishable from one another. Locating next of kin for proper notification might have been well nigh impossible so closely resemble one another did they.

They continued to run alongside my vehicle until I made the turn behind the bank and straightened out to hit the back exit. One of them set up shop to my right, the other to my left.

Just off my left rear bumper was another guard with fidgety feet and shifty eyes, watching me closely and gearing up I guess in case he had to make an attempt to corral my vehicle should I stray from their predetermined path again.

I didn’t. I had learned my lesson.

I hit the exit and had to stop to allow traffic to pass before I could turn onto the street that would eventually take me home.

Apparently, the guards didn’t think stopping was in my best interests, so they began creeping closer to the vehicle. I wasn’t sure they wouldn’t just pick up the Jeep and heave it into their preferred path, so I found the first opening that even remotely seemed large enough to allow me into traffic and gunned the accelerator.

As I pulled into the street, I looked in my rearview mirror to make sure I wasn’t being tracked by these ever-vigilant ones.

They were at ease with my departure.

They stood on all fours, munching close-cropped grass and low-hanging tree branches.

As I almost lost sight of them in the side-view mirrors, I would swear that one of the bright green iguanas that had laid claim to the bank’s lawn as their own private domicile flipped his tail in the air at me as if to say, “And you better stay away, sucker.”

My congratulations to the personnel manager who brought these three vigilant guards on board.

They work cheap, and save money on lawn maintenance to boot.

No Comments »