Something unusual happened in the UWM Post office the other day. There are a lot of undesirable situations that occur on a day-to-day basis in our office due to our recent move.

People randomly poke their heads in to ask if they can rent a _ (place object necessary to enjoy outdoor recreation here) because our new office is located where, two years ago, the Outing Center was.

Sometimes, despite the sign by our front door that says UWM Post (right arrow), SA (left arrow), people still stop in and ask if this is the SA office. The UWM Post staff’s favorite common blunder is, “Can I mail this?” It happens all the time. We are not a “post office,” we are the UWM Post office. You would be surprised at how confusing this can be.

I digress. The other day someone called from Engelmann Hall to inform us that they had received some of our mail by accident. I needed to get out of the office, so I volunteered to walk down and retrieve our much-anticipated mail. I got the room number, and as I hung up, I told the editor in chief where I was headed. It was at that moment that I realized I had no idea where Engelmann Hall is.

I was told the building is next to the Architecture and Urban Planning (AUP) building. That seems reasonable — I think I had a class there my freshman year. So, I grab my jacket, and head out on my hike. As I trek across the street, a brisk wind blows and I clutch my thin jacket around my frame as I think about how glad I am to be almost there. Then I see it, the sign for the building I was thinking of, Lapham Hall.

OK, well, I guess I have a longer trip than I thought. I walked toward AUP, keeping my fingers crossed that the building was around here somewhere, as I’m not quite used to the cold yet. As I turn the corner, I see what appeared to be a tiny little cottage-type building, and I thought to myself, “How cute! At least it should be easy to find the room.” I walked into the first door I saw, and was quickly very confused.

I found myself in a tiny little entryway with one lecture hall in front of me, a closet on my left, and a set of stairs with a chain blocking the way up behind me. The only way I could go was through a door that appeared to lead to an exit. That was in fact not the case. There, through the door was a set of stairs I could go up, so I did. I arrived at a landing with one door, not the right number. Then, another landing appeared up a few steps to my left. Through another door mimicking an exit was a row of glass front offices which all apparently wound around each other, because the room numbers seemed to mix themselves up every time I turned around.

All that kept flashing through my head was, “I really hope there isn’t a fire. I would never be able to get out of here.” I finally walked into an office full of cubicles and of course no one noticed me. I asked if someone could help me, and after a moment a young woman walked toward me, giving me the impression that she had no intention of offering to help me whatsoever.

I asked her anyway, and she pointed me to another gray, bleak cubicle where I found a woman standing and I asked her if she had called me. She replied in a smart-alecky way that she didn’t know who I was, although I suspect that she had an idea, as I had just spoken to her. After receiving the mail, I thanked them and realized I didn’t know where I was.

I found a set of stairs after a little searching and descended to the real world, or so I thought. At the bottom of the stairs were two sets of doors to go through before I arrived at my destination: outside. The only problem was I had never been where I now was. Suddenly I had flashbacks of high school sporting events and playing in the fields in my sparsely populated hometown.

I suddenly realized I was behind the AUP building, and cautiously wandered around the corner where I almost ran into a couple kids getting a tour of the campus. I found myself thinking, “Why are they showing them this part of the campus? They will never need to come over here for any reason, ever.”

Unless their mail gets lost …

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