I’m a man who takes every shortcut he can in life, except one – I always take the stairs instead of the lift (2 floor max).

Today I was punished for that exception.

At 10.30am it was time for my mid-morning coffee. I never actually want a coffee at this time, but after a football match of working I need a non-chat break and I’m too old to sit in the toilet to kill time, so I have to go somewhere. Somewhere is the cafe on the ground floor of the office.

Being two floors or less away, I walked down the stairs to get there. To get into the lobby, we stairdwellers have to go through a door made with the leftover material from Thor’s hammer. It’s so heavy that even a unit like me needs two hands to push it open. So I put my staff card in my mouth and began my proprietary sequence of grunts and exhales which gave me the strength and momentum I needed to open the door.

I arrived into the lobby with a slight sweat and light-headed. A barrier divides the lobby into two sides. There’s the enclosure side with the lifts and stairs up to the office floors, and there’s the public side where families come to buy coffee and watch depressed animals ascend voluntarily into their cages.

The stairwell door is a tiny bit further away from the security gates than the lifts are. I’ve never thought of a good use for these three metres of dead space, I’ve toyed with the idea of having a cough or checking the length of my nails, but neither ever seemed right. Today I found the solution, though not one that benefitted me – it is prime real estate for commotions.

There was a bloke who looked like a giraffe and a younger woman in a black and white striped top, both in a flap and fretting around a twirling lady with an Amy Winehouse hairdo. It felt a bit like the scene in Madagascar where the animals are trying to escape from Grand Central Station. Given recent weight concerns, I was paranoid they were going to ask me to play Gloria in their pantomime. This thought catastrophised around my head until I decided to volunteer my services, my idea being to beat them to the punch and play her on my terms.
But Melman beat me to it and snapped “Are you scared of wasps?!”
“I want complete artistic control and no understudy.” I muffled.
Fortunately, I still had my staff card in my mouth and he didn’t have a clue I’d answered an imaginary question.
He repeated “Are you scared of wasps?!” 
I reverted to the training my dad gave me on my first day of year 7 at an all-boys school. I puffed my chest out, spat on the floor, and said “Obviously not, mate.”
The tornado twisted as Melman and she-Marty pushed themselves away from Amy and thrust me towards her.
I put my staff card in my pocket, clasped my hands behind my back, leant over, and said “What appears to be the problem?”
She screamed “THERE’S A WASP IN MY HAIR!”
I looked around and realised, for the first time in my life, I was the responsible adult. I knew exactly what I had to do, as did she, as did the other animals, as did the 7 foot security guard who I’m sure was on our side of the barrier five seconds ago. But this is 2025 and silently doing the right thing isn’t enough.
I said to the spinning singer “Hullo miss. Do you confirm you want me to absolute bat the wasp out of your barnet?”
“YES!” she shrieked.
I had my mandate.

I took a step back, which felt the right thing to do but it actually put me out of range and I immediately had to step back in. She saw me floundering and took charge. She unravelled her beehive, somehow without touching it. Unfortunately, it kept its sole inhabitant, who I now thought, on paper, had a very good reason for being in there. Then she did a proprietary sequence of head shakes and bobs back and forth until her long hair was roughed up and evenly distributed around her head. She’d been through enough so I didn’t say it, but she looked like the Grudge. We’d quickly gone from a U to an 18, but she’d given me better visibility of the wasp and a clean striking area.

She then dipped her head like I was a hippogriff she was trying to tame (I suppressed any Gloria connotations). It was the first time I’d seen her still and there was something delicate and saintly about her. Then her golden locks went into shock as some random bloke from upstairs started swiping wildly at them.
On the first swipe I was too tentative. I hit too far away and it forced the wasp deeper. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw she-Marty nod approvingly, I realised why when I looked in my hand and saw I’d pruned off a few split ends.
After this I went full throttle. I got the wasp out in the next three swipes, though I couldn’t resist a finale swipe with a little flourish at the end to please the crowd.
Five swipes is not bad given the conditions and only one above my stretch target. People will always criticise you in this game and there are already a few saying her blonde hair made the wasp easier to see. To them I say you can only swat what’s put in front of you, and I’ll be in the same place at 10.30am tomorrow if they wish to discuss further.

Amy thanked me as I overheard the 7 foot David Attenborough confirm to Melman and she-Marty that it was a wasp and not a fly. I scanned my saliva-coated staff card on the gates and entered civilisation. I tried to remember why I was down there in the first place and decided to get a coffee until it came back to me.
When I got to the front of the queue I said to the barista “You’ll never guess what just happened!”
She gave me an odd look and said “I saw everything that just happened and I still can’t explain it.”
As she made my white americano, I looked back from her vantage point at my barbershop. From here, I would have had my back to her, she wouldn’t have been able to see the wasp, and she wouldn’t be able to tell I was only hitting hair… Uh oh.
I pleaded “It’s not what it looked like-”
She put her hand up to stop me, she didn’t want to hear it. I misinterpreted this as an invitation to prove my innocence. I put my hand up, opened my palm, and smiled as clumps of hair fell out. I hoped I’d get another nod, but then I noticed a few roots in there, and she deservedly looked at me like she was chewing on the wasp I’d just liberated.