Spy for a day

When I was in high school, I took one of those aptitude tests that's supposed to let you know the kind of job for which you are best suited.  Mine listed the following: FBI, CIA, detective, private investigator...you get the idea.  I was in heaven.  I'd been reading mysteries my entire life, starting with Encyclopedia Brown and Nancy Drew and The Three Investigators and growing into Dorothy Sayers and Agatha Christie and Ngaio Marsh.  It was my calling.  It was what I was meant to do! Confirmation!!!

My mother took one look at it and said "No!" and handed it back to me.

(pop went my bubble)

I never gave up on mysteries...still read them, still watch them.  My friends and family find it annoying that I can usually guess "who done it" 10-20 mins into a show. But seriously, Hollywood is rather formulaic most of the time.  It's not that hard if you know about economy of characters, etc. The only time I get thrown is when they use a deus-ex-machina (some completely illogical, oftentimes supernatural solution).  I HATE that!  

Some years back, I heard about The International Spy Museum opening in DC and I knew I HAD to go.  I know, hardly a patriotic reason to see DC, but I mean, come on...I actually have an encyclopedia of Codes and Ciphers...I LOVE this stuff!

When my friend and I finally arrived in DC last month, I was like a 5 yr old on Xmas morning.  I was walking on my toes, giggling, twirling around...I was SO excited.  As soon as we checked in and unloaded our stuff into our room, we went right across the street to the Spy Museum!  I bought our tickets to "Operation Spy", the interactive spy adventure you have to pay extra for, but it was my one and only chance to be a spy and I was SO EXCITED!  So excited, in fact, that I apparently hadn't been breathing deeply enough, I was getting light-headed.  I stopped and took a deep breath and POP, a disc in my upper back slipped.  I froze!  My friend's eyes got huge.  "Are you ok?" I could barely hear her over the ringing in my ears (never a good sign), especially coupled with the fact that my eyes were fuzzing out like in-between channels on the tv.  "You're sweating....you're pale...are you ok?"

I couldn't believe this.  It was the first day of our vacation...this was the place I had wanted to come for years...and my back went out right after I got the ticket in my hand?!

My friend was trying to convince me we should go back to the hotel.  No way!  I paced gently back and forth (I knew if I sat down I wouldn't be able to get back up.)  I glared at the flight of stairs in front of me that I knew we would be climbing.  (The only warning on the ticket was that there were a lot of stairs).  I didn't care...I was staying.  I was going.  I was going to be a spy!

After a lot of praying on both our parts, and a lot of shallow breathing on my part...my back eased to the place where I could move a little better. My friend stuck my wrist purse (the biggest one I'm allowed to carry thanks to my bad back) in her big bag and I tied my jacket around my waist.

"I'll be ok, I'm doing this!" I told her.

And I did.  I couldn't put my hands down by my sides for the next 20 mins of the 1 hr adventure. But I made it.

It started with your group (you adventure with 15 people to a group, which was a bummer since the ad made it look like you'd be going with whomever you came with only...but I let it go).  First, you have to figure out how to enter the room where you are going and you only have 30 seconds to do it.  I actually was the one who figured it out; but honestly, it was by accident.

Once inside, they give you your passport and get you trying to memorize everyone else's name...but it's basically a distraction to kill time before your guide, I mean your senior agent in charge, shows up.  Then you enter the made-up foreign country and your first stop is your safe room, where you learn who is who and then use some monitors to spy on your undercover contact and the person she's meeting.  

You go through "sewer" tunnels, you hide from cameras and guards (imagine 15 people "hiding" in a sewer), you break into an office and search for clues (I got to break into a safe!) and reset the room (the show you if you left anything out of place)...you make a quick escape in the back of a truck...you interrogate a suspect on a lie-detector...you run up to the roof to escape by helicopter (well...a bright light and a rope ladder that drop toward you before the lights go out).

Basically, your tour guide is a one-man/woman show guiding you through the stuff you need to figure out...helping you if you are too dense to get it,etc.

Then we moved on to the actual museum tour (2 hrs).  The first put you in a room where you have one minute to find a cover (name, place of birth, age, where you are traveling to and why) on a post that matches your age/gender...and memorize it.  This time, you did actually have to memorize it.  Then they move you to watch a short movie and release you to start the museum.  You learn about all the basics of spying, spy gear, the history of spies....and then about 1/2 way through (1 hr later) you come to a screen where you have to sit down and these eyes are staring at you ...a passport inspector who is about to question you on your cover story.  They even throw in a "think on your feet" question that you need to answer quickly and if you don't answer correctly, you'll have blown your cover, or at least become seriously suspicious.  I made it through that part easily (nice to know my brain isn't as fried as I thought), and then they give you NEW info that you have to memorize...where you are going in the town you arrived in, who you are meeting and why, and where they work, how they are employed.  Then you finish the museum tour and at the very end (another hour later) you come to the final screen where they ask you a combo of questions from your original cover, and the 2nd piece they threw in... and another "think on your feet" question.  And I passed!  It said I'd be a great spy! (sigh) 

Is it wrong how blitheringly happy that makes me?