Par Five in the Lorillard section

Most people at the Tobacco Document Depository worked one of two shifts: the morning shift was from opening (around 8 am) to 3 or 4 PM. The other shift was from 10 or 11 AM until closing (around 6 PM). When I first started, I would do the morning shift, but eventually I wanted to take Fridays off, so I would work Monday through Thursday from opening to close. That way I got my forty hours a week. However, the best part of working until close was when several of us would knock off at 5:15 (this was, of course, when no clients, lawyers, or bosses were around. This was alot shortly before I left), and we would play the nine holes of the Minnesota Tobacco Document Depository golf course. That's right, we created an indoor golf course (of sorts).
Now, we were limited by three things:
1. Space: Even though this was a warehouse, you have to understand that there were row after row of shelves filled with boxes. Every shelf went from floor to ceiling. If you were claustrophobic, this was not the place for you to work. Only one person at a time could move through the stacks. While most of the walls were made of drywall (more on that a little later), a few were security walls, so they had to be tougher and thicker. This meant that if a ball bounced off that wall, it could go anywhere: off a co-worker (see #2), way out into the rough (near the bosses' office), or, in a few cases, it could bounce back right at you. Imagine being able to see, from start to finish, the very thing that was going to knock you out or hurt you. You brain ends up doing this:
WHACK! Oh that sounded good. Ping! (off the wall and back at your head.) Oh, this will not end well....WHAM! Annnnnnnnd, good night...
2. Co-workers: In order to make the holes work, we had to move from one side of the warehouse to the other (both side to side and front to back). If someone was sitting at a particular desk (like Tanya, who started with one table and somehow created a space for five people that only she would be allowed to sit at), then they might either complain, or be in the way. I can honestly recall one time I was playing with Bill trying to get out of the RJR Tobacco section. Our chip shots were way off that night. Eric, another worker, was working dilligently and wouldn't move. Well, Bill tried to chip around Eric, only, again, the shots were off that night, so he smacked Eric right in the head with a golf ball. Granted it wasn't that hard of a shot (remember, cramped spaces), but it still left a welt on Eric's head. I thought he was going to grab Bill's club and beat him to death. It was also really hard not to laugh. It's the Three Stooges principle: It's extremly funny when someone else is getting hurt. When it becomes you, then it's infuriating.
3. Clubs: We had only three clubs: a 3-wood, a five iron, and a putter. For a good golfer, three clubs would probably not be a problem, but those of us who were part of the MTDD Golf Club all, well, what's a good word....sucked. You ended up using the five iron more than any other club, but you had to be careful of either putting the club or the ball through the drywall. That actually happened once. The same night we hit Eric in the head, I actually chipped too hard and put my ball through the wall in the Phillip Morris section. I had to take a drop (two shots, damn it) and get a new ball. That was also the night that we put a hole in a box and had to make a quickie patch in order to hide the evidence.
Three days before I left the Depot, a few of us (all of us leaving) played a round for the MTDD Master's Trophy, or a 40 oz can of Budweiser in layman's terms. Three guys, bored out of their minds, played an incredible round of golf. It all came down to final hole (which was a par five in the Lorillard section. You had to start by the wall, curve around the next stack, get around to the far back of the warehouse, and then sink the put into the coffee cup that had apparently been on the floor by the wall since the place opened (a few years by the time I got there). If you were able to use the wall correctly, you could rebound off the end of the stack, down the next stack and then chip to the cup and sink a put for birdie. If you missed the wall, however, then you were screwed. Your ball would roll all the way down to the RJR section. The only way you could avoid a double bogey at that point was with a miracle.
All of us made it to the cup in three shots, so it would come down to whoever missed the putt. As John stepped up to take his putt, we heard our boss bringing a few lawyers to the back to look at the Lorillard section. John panicked and slammed the putter into the ball smashing the cup and driving the ball off a fire door and back toward where the lawyers were coming. If I hadn't taken a face-planting dive, they would have discovered our game. We were able to hide the clubs, and John made a big deal about, "breaking his lucky mug," by tripping on carpet seam. They bought it.
So nobody won. One day, before the Depot closes, the three of us will return for one more game. I don't really drink anymore, but I want bragging rights. I better start practicing my putts and my ability to be the ball. (Note to self: call Chevy Chase.)