27) Signs, Signs, Everywhere There's Signs
A slight deviation from rules…
Grissom appeared in Catherine's office door and right away she could see he was fuming.
"I want The Wall crew at The Wall in ten minutes. No matter what they're doing, they will drop it and get down there now." He turned to leave.
"Why? What's wrong?"
He looked back at her. "You're in as much trouble as they are so I suggest you don't ask questions and get a move on."
She was speechless, only able to watch him disappear from her door. What had she done? Catherine got up and started collecting the crew.
#
Grissom charged into the room, finding all The Wall Crew – minus Robbins and Ecklie – waiting for him.
He slapped a stack of papers down on the table, and pointed at them while he told them, "I am tired of all the other supervisors, the Under Sheriff, the Sherriff, and a whole lot of other people bringing these things to me and asking why they've been posted!"
The group looked at the stack of papers. Nick reached out to pick one of the papers up. He moved slow, watching Grissom watch him. Grissom mad was not a nice thing to be at the end of, and he felt that a sudden movement could set him off. Nick held up the paper and read it out loud:
Sperm Washing from 8p to 10a
Because he could tell Grissom was furious about this, he looked somewhere other than at him or he'd start laughing. He had written this one and taped it to Ecklie's office door.
"These signs are just pranks, Grissom. There's no harm in them," Mandy said.
"These pranks are getting me in trouble, and I don't appreciate that," Grissom growled at her.
She snatched the one off the top, and without looking at it read it:
Child drop off. Have alms ready.
"Really, Grissom, how can that be offensive?" Mandy asked.
"I said enough. No more signs. Understand. No more!"
The group didn't answer. Grissom grabbed a piece of chalk and walked over to the wall. With angry, jabbing strokes he wrote:
421. I will not post signs around the lab that are neither accurate nor unnecessary.
Grissom tossed the chalk down, turning to them. "No more!" He turned to Catherine. "Before anyone leaves this room, I expect you to make sure that rule is engrained in their heads. You'll be the first one I reprimand if I see even one more sign."
Then he left, leaving behind a very stunned Wall Crew. They were half expecting him to come back in and tell them this was a prank, that they'd just been punk'd, there were hidden cameras, and more importantly, that he really didn't mean rule number four hundred and twenty-one. But he didn't return. His unusual angry reprimand had been real and he wanted to make sure they understood, without any doubt, he was not tolerating it anymore.
Nick reached out and picked up the stack of papers, thumbing through them.
"Who put signs up?" Catherine said, turning to them.
No one answered. They avoided eye contact with her. She realized they were all guilty of this. She shook her head, taking the signs from Nick. He almost argued until she gave him a level glance. She leaned against the table, reading the top one out loud:
Internal Affairs Conspirators meeting held here. All attendees must present the head of an officer before entering.
She looked up when Greg and Archie both stifled their snickers.
"Boys?"
"He did it," they said together, pointing at the other.
"Something tells me you both did it."
"Aw come on, Catherine!" Warrick protested. "That's funny. All those signs are funny. There was no reason to yell at all of us for them."
"Or for anyone to yell at Grissom for them," Hodges added.
She went to the next one:
Diabolical National Alien meeting here. 9pm - 10pm
"Diabolical National Alien meeting? What the hell is that?" Catherine asked.
Wendy answered, "DNA."
Catherine couldn't resist laughing. "DNA?"
"Yep."
"That is not what DNA stands for."
"Depends on if you're a doctor or an alien, really."
Catherine shook her head and read the next one:
Fingerprinting. Bring your own paints
"That was funny. We all finger-painted that night. We were bored," Henry told her.
"And where was this hung?"
"Outside the fingerprint lab," Mandy told her.
"And the DNA?"
"The DNA lab," Henry answered.
"And the Internal Affairs Conspirators?"
"Taped real good on the undersheriff's door," Nick said.
"And the children and sperm washing?"
"Children was on the janitor closet door. Sperm washing, Ecklie's," Greg answered.
"You guys! It's no wonder he's mad!"
"Hey, our jobs are stressful," Warrick retorted. "We have to find ways to make them less stressful. Even if it is at our supervisor's, and their supervisor's, expense."
"And their supervisor's supervisor's supervisor's expense," Nick added.
"NO!" Catherine told them. "You do not make your job less stressful at anyone's expense, except for criminals. And this doesn't count!" She held up the next sign:
America's Dumbest Criminal drop off / pick up
"Who's door?" she asked.
"Undersheriff," the group answered.
"Why do all of you know that?"
They smiled, but no one offered an explanation.
"And this one." Catherine read it out loud:
Hoe delivery taken in back
"What does that even mean?" Catherine demanded.
They laughed.
"Wow... I didn't think you were that old, Catherine," David told her.
She narrowed her eyes. "What do you mean?"
"You have to lower your mind set to about gutter level," Hodges told her.
"Lower," Greg said.
"Sewer?"
"Lower," Warrick told him.
"Sewage filth level?"
"Lower," Nick said.
"I get it," Catherine told them. "And if it means what I'm thinking it means, this is considered sexual harassment." She waved the sign at them. "You should all be written up for even knowing what the person that wrote it meant. Who wrote this one?"
They pointed at each other.
They weren't about to cooperate, so she moved on to the next sign:
Complaint department located in Sacramento. See the Pug at the corner newsstand for directions. Avoid conversation with his 'owner.'
"What the hell?" she asked.
"What?" several of them asked back.
"Pug? As in a dog?"
"Yeah," Henry answered.
"A talking dog?"
"You don't watch movies much, do you?" Gina asked.
"You get what this means?"
"Men in Black, first one. The Pug is an alien and talks, the owner's part if his disguise."
"Alrighty then… Anyone care to explain these two to me?" She held them up.
No boys allowed.
No girls allowed.
"Well…" Wendy started. "The boys put the girl's sign on the girl's bathroom."
Gina finished, "So we put the boys sign on the boys bathroom. It was appropriate."
Catherine frowned when she looked at the signs. "You guys are very strange."
"We not strange. You strange!" Archie told her.
She shook her head, reading the next one:
S.W.A.T. team clubhouse.
Putting on a pitiful, hurt look, Henry told her, "They took over our break room."
"When?"
"Three nights ago. After that standoff at the Mirage. They wouldn't let us have our break room back."
"So you put a sign on the break room?"
"Well… Yeah. They wouldn't let us have our break room back."
"You guys need to learn to share. And I supposed this happened at the same time?"
Bombs and Squads must be escorted at all times.
"Hey, they didn't seem to know if they were the Bomb Squad or Squad," Gina retorted. "We made sure all parts of them were escorted when they left the conference room. We were just covering our assets."
"Assets?"
"She means asses," Warrick said.
"I mean my assets. They kept stealing the candy from my candy jar!"
"You guys you have to play better with the rest of the departments."
"We're all for playing cops and robbers nice!" Greg told her. "They're the ones that come in and tear up our makeshift jail cells and interrogation rooms. One even stole my paper badge!"
"I'm going to be gray before I'm fifty…"
They just smiled at her. She held up the next one.
Buy one spectrum analysis, get one free
"We're selling our services now?"
"I never actually put a price on there," Henry said.
"You put a price on this one, Henry. So now what's your excuse?" She held up the next one:
CODIS searches: 14.99, AFIS searches: 20.99, random Google searches: 6.99, throwing darts at board with predetermined answers: FREE
"I didn't do that," Henry retorted.
"I thought those were fair prices, myself," Nick said.
"You wrote this?"
"No. I just thought they were pretty fair. Those things take us a lot of time."
"Where… Where was this posted?"
No one readily offered an answer.
"Where?"
"It might have… Maybe… Possibly…" Archie hesitated, and then said as fast as he could, "Found its way to the mayor's door on someone's day off."
"Yours?"
"No! No. Not mine."
"Who's?"
Again they all pointed at each other. "You guys are impossible! How are Grissom and I supposed to enforce any discipline if you guys won't fess up to your mistakes?"
"They aren't mistakes," Gina told her.
"How do you figure?"
"Mistakes would mean we didn't mean to do them."
"Mistakes are also things you know damn well you're not supposed to be doing and do it anyway."
"That's a mere technicality that is otherwise impertinent and meaningless."
"Gina…"
"Besides, you aren't my supervisor. Neither is Grissom. Ecklie is."
"Gina…"
"What?"
"Stop encouraging the rest of the class." Catherine held up the next sign, adding, "And don't deny it either. This is your handwriting."
Goldenrod forms required for ballistic returns.
"Whaaaaaat?" Gina innocently asked.
"What goldenrod forms? And for what ballistic returns?"
"Returns… In general. Any returns. Little returns. Big returns. Bullet returns. Just… Returns."
"Bobby, explain." She held up the next one.
Please see receptionist for goldfish removal.
"She always flushes the goldfish that I kill," Bobby told her.
"You're keeping goldfish in ballistics?" Catherine asked.
"He means the crackers," Nick said, laughing. "When these two go into one of their little pseudo-sibling spats, he bites the heads off all of the fish and gives her the bag. Gina gets mad and tosses the entire bag in the toilet."
"Oh. Southern blots?" Catherine held up the next sign.
All Southern blots are to report to the green door on level three.
"Does this have something to do with Bobby or Nick?"
"Bobby isn't Southern," Nick retorted.
Bobby nodded. "I'm not Southern."
"Whatever! Is it or not?"
"No!" Greg told her. "It has to do with DNA testing. Are you a CSI or a duck?"
His question made her eyebrows rise. "A duck?"
"Yeah." Greg grinned. "Hey, I like that."
"That was good," Nick agreed.
"I would have chosen something a little furrier for Catherine," Warrick admitted. "Like a badger."
"Badger?" she asked him.
"Yeah. You know. Kinda cute until you make it mad and then it'll rip your face off."
"Thank you!" She laughed. "I like you too."
He grinned. "Thanks!"
"That was sarcasm."
"Sounded sincere to me."
"What is this?" Catherine held up the sign:
Restricting fragmented length polymorphisms prohibited.
"DNA reference," Greg and Wendy answered.
"Another one?"
"Oh yeah. World's full of great DNA one liners," Wendy told her.
"I'll take your word for it. This one?"
Algae processing half-off today only.
"Morning shift left us a box of rocks with algae on it and a note asking us to test the algae for toxic substances," she explained. "And we finished it. The next morning, there were two boxes of rocks with algae, same note. The next morning—"
"Let me guess. Three boxes of rocks with algae and a note asking it to be tested?"
"Yeah. So we left them a kind note and they didn't give us anymore boxes of rocks with algae."
You guys need more work." Catherine showed them the next sign:
Conglomerate Sediment Metamorphic Therapy every Tuesday, 2am to 5am
Igneous Support group every Thursday, 1am to 3am
"Rocks have feelings," Greg told her.
"Greg!" She let her head fall back a moment, then looked him in the eye. "For the billionth time, Gregory Hojem Sanders, rocks do not have feelings!"
"How do you know that? Have you ever asked one?"
"I… I'm not even going to justify that with an answer. Let me guess. One of my lovely underlings put this on Grissom's door?"
Insects for sale. Bonus shrunken head with every purchase. Inquire within.
"Yeah," Archie answered. "And he thought it was amusing at the time. I'm surprised it upset him now."
"Right. Bobby?"
Beware of irregular trajectory projectiles
Bobby grinned. "Never know with ballistics. Especially when we're testing Nerf crossbows."
"Nerf crossbows?"
"It was a test."
"Of what?"
"Just a test."
"For what purpose?"
Bobby's smile dropped. "We had to have a purpose? No one mentioned anything about a purpose."
She rolled her eyes, moving on. "This doesn't make sense, Henry."
Please hold autoradiograph requests until after presentation.
"Sure it does!" he piped.
"How?"
"Well…" Henry's smile widened with orneriness. "Once they're printed, you probably have to hold on to them, and present them to someone, so… hence holding them until after presentation."
Catherine was momentarily dumbfounded with the answer and the fact that he took something that was so obvious and made it obtrusive by putting it on a sign.
"You do realize that you are, at times, far too smart for your own good, don't you?"
"I've noticed that on a few occasions."
Catherine held up the next, questioning the text:
No flourescien permitted until all lawyers have been cleared from the building.
"We wanna make sure we know exactly when to use it, in case there's some lawyer in the lab that's allergic to pretty much anything. Or so she claims."
"But Henry, we use this at crime scenes, rarely in the lab."
"She sued the lab for jeopardizing her health."
"And our lawyers won that case."
"I'm just helping to avoid future complications with lawyers too stupid to tie their own shoes."
"She didn't have her shoes tied?"
"She was wearing heels. She tried to tie her shoe. I think she was hiding something about her law degree, myself."
"Riiiighhht. And bomb making?" She held up the sign.
Blast Caps 2. Copper wiring 6. Sides of TNT, RDX, or PETN 1. Order alterations additional charges.
"Exactly how much don't Grissom and I know about you brats?" Catherine asked.
"We're good lab rats," Mandy told her.
"Completely devoid of misbehavior," Nick added with a solid nod.
"We would never, ever do something dangerous or questionable behind your backs," Warrick told her.
"All of your noses have just grown five inches. David? Really?"
Corpse Crossing
"I wanted to make sure everyone knew that's where the corpses crossed so they wouldn't be surprised."
"And that being where, exactly?"
"That was the day we had to go through the lobby because the mortician's elevator had broke down. We just wanted to make sure everyone was aware dead people were going to be seen, but not talking."
"Seen… But not talking… I probably don't want to know, do I?"
He smiled.
"Guys… This one doesn't even make sense!"
Luminol and latex only permitted the second Wednesday each week.
"No one ever said our signs had to make sense," Gina argued.
"And who did this one?"
Wendy Crossing. High profile vehicles use low speeds.
Everyone pointed at Hodges.
"She called me a complicated oaf!"
"You are a complicated oaf!" Wendy argued back.
"I am not."
"If you could only hear yourself right ow," Archie commented.
"Whose side are you on?" Hodges demanded.
"The one that is least likely to kick my butt."
They all laughed. Except Hodges.
"Why do the jokes always seem to come back to me?"
"You make yourself an easy target, Hodges," Catherine told him.
"How? All I do is stand here and be nice to everyone and—"
They all howled with laughter at the 'be nice' part.
"I'm going back to work!" Hodges told them as he stormed out of the room.
"Please tell me you guys don't really do this." She held up the next sign.
Employees must wash Maglites before returning to work
"Well, we have to wash our hands before returning to work," Nick explained, "so it only makes since we'd wash them too since we handle it all the time."
"Really? Is that why you go through so many, Nick?"
He looked surprised at the accusation. "Me?"
"The manufacturer advertises them as sound and water proof. And what about that testimony on their website?" Greg asked.
"What testimony?" Catherine asked back.
"Some guy on a submarine left his in this place that floods when they submerge and when he finally got it, it was working."
"And there was the stories about it lasting during floods, underwater, turned on," Warrick pointed out.
"You three are unbelievable. Who wrote this?"
Barf bag in tow
No one pointed, and no one fessed up.
"Does anyone know what it means?"
They all smiled, but no one answered.
"I take your grins as a yes. Does someone want to clue me in?"
They didn't answer.
"Thought not. This one?"
Humerus not permitted during the hours of 10am to 12pm
"It's a coroner joke," David told her.
"Apparently I have to cut people up to get it?"
"No. Just know anatomy."
She looked at the sign, then him. "I still don't get it."
He shrugged. "Robbins did."
"Uh-huh. And I guess these two are coroner jokes too?" She read the next two aloud:
Toe Zone
Necropsy Anonymous meet here every day from 12a - 1a
"David… Were you bored?"
"Some nights. More people need to die."
She was the only one that didn't laugh, but he responded to the others with a grin.
"And you call us morbid!" Nick said.
"He talks to dead people. He's allowed," Gina told him.
"I don't talk to dead people," David protested, loudly.
The all looked at him.
He smiled, sheepishly adding, "Much."
Catherine held up the next one. "Do we really have to do the DNA jokes? I mean, really. How funny is DNA?"
Know Your Mitochondrial DNA Conference has been postponed until Friday.
"It can be really amusing," Greg told her.
"Uh-huh. Okay, look guys, you all need—"
"What's the last one say?" Henry asked.
"That was it," Catherine told him.
"No it wasn't. There's twenty-three and you only read twenty-two."
Everyone stared at him.
"Damn! Can I be smart like you?" Archie asked.
"Take more iron," Henry shot back, but he was relentless about the signs. "What's the last sign say, Catherine?"
She laughed, putting her hands behind her back with the signs. "It's not really appropriate."
"And the hoe one was?" Hodges asked. "What does it say?"
"Nothing! Just blank paper." Catherine pulled her hands around and showed them a blank page… Until she turned it write and they could all see writing on the other side.
Warrick and Greg grabbed her and Nick and Henry wrestled the paper out of her hand.
"NO!" Catherine cried, trying to hold on tight.
They pulled them away and Nick moved behind the line of Wallers. He turned it over, reading:
Lemming Drop-off Ahead. Be prepared for sudden stops
Gina pulled the paper so she could see it, and then cried, "Catherine!"
"What?"
"That is your handwriting!"
"Guess dad's mad at mom for joining the kid's pranks," Nick said. "Thanks Catherine. You just had to put the last needle on the… Wait… Where did you hang this?"
Catherine looked down, away from all of them.
"Where did you hang this?" Nick pressed, starting to laugh.
She looked up at the ceiling, just smiling. "I have no idea what you mean."
"CATHERINE!" Greg gave her arm a playful slug. "Where did you hang it? It had to be somewhere good for him to go off like he did."
"Come on, Catherine," Mandy said, sidling up to her and putting her arm around Catherine's shoulders. "You're at The Wall. Tell us."
Catherine laughed, rolling her eyes. "On the door of the conference room tonight."
A round of gasps met her answer, followed by laughter.
"The meeting with the mayor about some disciplinary infractions among the CSI and lab techs. Not just our shift, all of them. It's just a little sign! And I put it down low!"
Warrick put his arm around her, smiling as he nodded. "It's nice to know our pseudo-supervisor can get in trouble with the best of us."
"Yeah… But I don't think it did much for Grissom's mood."
"Do you think he told them who did it?" Bobby asked her.
She laughed, shaking her head. "He was mad when he was ordered to attend the meeting, but I think the meeting made him madder than the sign did."
Her phone began ringing and she answered it. "Willows… Yes. Yes… Yes, Gil. We'll be right up. Yes we did. No I'm not lying! We'll be right up. Bye."
She snapped her phone closed. "He wants us to work pronto and guys, be good tonight. He's still fuming."
Catherine tossed the signs on the table and led the group out. Nick caught up to her, waving the sign at her.
"Lemmings is really a good term for them, you know?"
She laughed, ripping the sign from his hand. She folded it and slid it in her back pocket.
"Shhh. They might hear you and run off the cliff."
Nick laughed with her.