Laura's day hadn't started well.  Liz kept disturbing the little sleep she had and now she had a mild headache due to lack of sleep.  Staying up was great, but now she had to get to work.

She fired up her computer and waited as it yawned and stretched and got ready to work.  Eventually it allowed her to double click the email icon.  It whirred and clicked and spun its wheels  then informed her it could not reach the network.

Laura's headache spread to her stomach.

She considered her options.  She could investigate it herself, but then the union would get at her.  Or she could put in a request to have her connection fixed.  The only problem was that you submitted the request electronically, and she couldn't do that because her network was down.

Laura sighed and looked up from her computer screen.  That when she noticed everyone was doing the stir'n'walk.  They had their cup of coffee and were wandering like aimless sheep bleating the same question to each other: "Can you get your email?  I can't get my email?  Can you get your email?"  It was a mini-holiday for the corporate world.  Maybe that was the reason behind many system outages.

Being proactive normally wasn't in Laura's nature.  The sick feeling in her stomach and the head ache forced her to at least get up and walk around.

She grabbed a mug of hot chocolate as camouflage and started milling around with the rest of them.

As she crossed the great open space, she started feeling better. She felt an urge to go further into the maze of cubicles.  She felt like Nancy Drew tracking down the clues.  Or maybe even Lara Croft, but she didn't think she could pull off the ... double holsters.

The great cubicle wasteland had a paneled floor the provided easy access to the wires and cables that kept the corporation running.  Laura was impressed with the common sense thinking that led to that innovation.

She walked along bent over, still clutching her hot chocolate, looking very much like someone looking for a lost contact. She was wearing her long black swooshy sweater vest.  The ends of the sweater swung around her legs as she walked.  This made her look more feminine and less mousy.

Finally, in the abandoned alley between two cubicles, Laura felt she had tracked down her quarry.  Feeling a touch foolish, she stole a quick glance around to see if anyone was looking.  She didn't know what possessed her to go on this strange snipe hunt, but it beat standing around with the sheep.

The slate gray carpeted panel came up easily.  Underneath was a cornucopia of wires.  Whoever set this up knew what the were doing.  All the cables were neatly bundled together and Laura could quickly categorize the electricity, telephone, and network cables.  This whole escapade improved Laura's opinion of modern construction.  There were obviously people out there that still took pride in their work.

One of the network cables had pulled itself slightly out of the hub.  Laura snapped it back in place and replaced the panel.  With a secret smile on her face, she picked up her mug of hot chocolate and floated back to her desk feeling ten feet tall.

All around her, computers rang little bells telling people that the streams of email were flowing once more.

Laura sat in her new found kingdom and smiled.