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| "That's a very nice gun you have pointed at me. Say... how would you like a chocolate chip cookie?" |
Secondly, it's not lairish enough. Frankly, no one would ever know it is a secret lair unless I told them. No one ever comes over and says, "Nice lair, Man!" Instead, they might say something like, "Where's the bathroom?" And if I said, "Just go past the secret lair and first door on left down the hall," they'd only be confused.
So as I remodel my lair, first thing I want is more privacy. Ideally it should be underground - not in the basement, underground. As I ride down on the elevator or Sup-R Slide (more on this later) I should see strata of solid rock going by with occasional arrowheads giving way to dinosaur skulls. The problem is, even getting to the basement is a hassle because I don't like going up or down stairs. This is the reason for the Sup-R Slide. An elevator is too slow and escalators are for malls. Some people opt for a fireman's pole, but that's a rookie's mistake. Firemen's poles burn your hands unless you wear gloves, and who wants to put on gloves before going to his secret lair? The problem with a Sup-R Slide is it's fine for getting into an underground lair, but useless for getting out. For getting out, I'd probably just have an ordinary elevator.
Scenes in which I'm leaving my lair would be cut out.
So what would be in my lair? Obviously, my comfortable chair, footstool, coffee table, TV, refrigerator, and a bathroom. Pretty much exactly like I have now. But I'd have some sort of exotic animal, too - like a shark slowly swimming back and forth in a giant aquarium, or a rhesus monkey screeching at dramatic moments and scene changes. A pit of alligators and/or crocodiles would also be nice. The budget for the lair is going to come in pretty high, so I might have to start with a white Persian cat, but this cat would be way fluffy - crazy fluffy - and he'd have a purr like an outboard motor. You can't just have a tabby cat in a secret lair. Obviously I'd also need beakers of bubbling chemicals and one of those electric things that shoots off long wiggly sparks and goes bzzzt. I'm not sure what those things are called, but they probably have them at Lowes.
Another consideration is getting into the Secret Lair, not for me, for other people. Half the fun of a Secret Lair in the first place is having other people find it once in a while. Like the classic Secret Lair entrance is a trick bookshelf. Someone says, "Hmmm, this volume on Byzantine Philosophy looks interesting," and they start to pull it out, and next thing they know, they're sliding down a Sup-R Slide past strata of arrowheads and dinosaur bones and into my Secret Lair. And I'd be all like, "So you've stumbled into my Secret Lair," because I'd be confident that even though it was supposed to be a secret, I'd already planned for this eventuality.
This is where the trap door comes in.
Of course, there could be some sort of booby trap on the Sup-R Slide itself that only I (and the contractors who installed it) would know about, but the whole fun of a booby trap is seeing the surprised look on someone's face as he disappears through a hole in the floor. My TV remote would have a special button "Trap Door," and I'd press it, and zingo!
The only trick then is to get someone to stand on the trap door. Sometimes trap doors are installed in front of a desk where someone would naturally stand, but I don't want to be sitting behind a desk all day when I'm in my Secret Lair. I'd have the trap door in front of my Plasma TV. It isn't easy, however, getting someone to stand in front of the TV; their natural courtesy makes them reluctant to block the view, even if it's just a commercial. Of course, if someone did stand in front of the TV, he'd deserve to go down a trap door. "Stop blocking the TV!" Button push. Zingo! But if someone didn't want to stand in front of the TV, I'd need something to tempt him there. Like a plate of chocolate chip cookies. And if someone came in my Secret Lair and tried to pull a gun on me, I'd be all like, "That's a very nice gun you have. Say, why don't you help yourself to one of those chocolate chip cookies while I change the channel on my Plasma TV?" Zingo!
Then I'd shout down at my victim, "How do you like my trap door? Later, I'm having alligators installed!"
