The Truth About The TP...

It was late Ju ly, and our days off, or lack thereof, were stressing us. You see, Whitney and I frequently had errands to run on our 'days off'. On one of her 'days off' trips to Fairbanks, I took a half day off and joined Whitney on a day trip to Denali. Jessie, this was the day that the famous raven bounced off my car's windshield. While on our way to the park, we decided that a good practical joke was in order. But what? What could possibly beat free ice cream at the Arctic Interagency Visitor Center or news about the new Wal-Mart going in at Wiseman?

The answer hit us. Toilet paper.

Executing The Plan:

Whitney returned to Coldfoot the next day, and I made my way up there the day after on my next survey trip. As it was a Thursday, Jessie had a split shift that day: four hours at work in the morning, four hours off in the middle of the day, and then four more hours of work in the evening. Whitney had the day off, and planned to sleep the day away. Or so she told Jessie.

Anyway, I stopped at Fred's on the way out of town to pick up our ammunition. As I headed up the Elliot highway in the morning, I watched my timing. I had to survey for a few hours at Finger Mountain. My plan was to get to Coldfoot by 7 p.m., right after Jessie would get back to work for the evening. That meant that I needed to be done with my work by 5:30 p.m. No problem! I made good time on the Dalton, including stops for the current road construction before the Yukon River. The surveying went fine; my mind really was on the TP and my schedule, more than my work.

About 5:30 p.m., I packed away my work equipment and headed further up the highway. I couldn't help laughing to myself. I didn't know if we could pull this off. Whitney and I would need to keep my work truck (easily recognizable, complete with GSA license plates) hidden from the other BLM folks who lived across the street from Jessie's cabin. I didn't know whether Lisa or James would be at home or at work - I hoped for the latter.

Whitney was clad in her pajamas when I arrived at her cabin. She looked wiped out. But we crammed into my truck (still full of my work stuff and gear) and headed over to Jessie's. As I'm writing this, I really don't remember whether Lisa's or James' vehicles were in front of their cabins or not. Either way, they weren't around. Looking over our shoulders, we ran up to the cabin, and I let us in. (This is the last time I'll ever be given keys to agency administration housing! ha ha ha).

Whitney and I each grabbed two rolls of TP and did what we had to do. We strung the stuff around the bunk beds, light fixtures, clothing hanging on the wall - anything we could to make it a good TP job. Even the pizza dough, rising on the open oven door had a new topping. (Move the cursor over each picture for a caption.)

It was over in five minutes. I took a few pictures to document our escapade.

We went back to Whitney's cabin, where she went back to sleep. I left my truck there - a good out-of-the-way hiding spot, since Jessie thought I was still working for the day. I walked up and down Slate Creek Road, picking blueberries and enjoying the late day sun. About 9:30 p.m., right before the AIVC was about to close, I headed over there, as if I was just getting done with my work for the day.

Everyone was very welcoming. They asked how my day went. Miraculously, I was able to keep a straight face, made some silly comment about the NATC tour van drivers I'd talked to at Finger Mountain and switched the subject to how Jessie's day had gone. She informed me that I would be eating pizza for dinner that night - Whitney was coming over at 10:30 p.m. - and she had pizza dough rising at home. I said that sounded great. Little did sweet Jessie know what was on her pizza dough already...

When 10 p.m. rolled around, the AIVC closed for the evening, and the staff just had to do a bit of cleaning and business stuff. I said I was going to go across the street to get a soda at the truck stop, and that I'd meet Jessie at home. Fine. I made sure that it took me a few minutes to gas up my truck and get my soda. Jessie had to beat me to her cabin.

Once again, my timing was great. I showed up at the same time Whitney did. We just looked at each other silently and headed for the front porch of Jessie's cabin, me with an armload of my overnight gear, and Whitney with her contribution of pizza toppings.

Suddenly, Jessie ran out of her cabin. She asked us, rather loudly and excitedly, what we were trying to pull. We looked at her as innocently as we could and asked what she meant. Silence. Jessie looked at each of us and asked if we knew about the toilet paper all over her cabin. We both laughed and said, "What?!" Jessie looked a bit confused for a minute. She urged us to come in and have a look around. We both laughed as we walked in to the cabin. Jessie had already started to remove some of the evidence of the crime. She decided to roll up the toilet paper, to use on another victim at another time.

Jessie spent much of her time that night, and yes, the rest of the summer, speculating on who had gotten her cabin so well. We offered a few other names - perhaps Jeff or Joyce? They both had good senses of humor. At the date of this writing (September 14th), Jessie still doesn't know what really happened that day, or who her vandals were. Whitney and I were so proud of ourselves. We'd gotten away with the best joke of the entire summer. And no one was the wiser.

Merry Christmas Jessie!

It was an entertaining summer!!!!