Several years ago when I was a junior in high school (six-ish years ago now), I was really into playing a certain table-top wargame. Well, a group of us from the local scene got really into the competitive scene and would travel to different states to play in tournaments. One of the guys was head security at this really upscale hotel downtown. There was a really large conference room on the ground floor—essentially a ballroom—attached to his office at the time. In order to access the conference room you needed a special key card/badge thing. He gave the group of us (about 4 people, all adults except me) these extra badges so we could have a private space to set up tables and practice for tournaments since no one used the conference room on the weekends unless there was a special event. Essentially, because, well, he was the fucking head of security he gave us unfettered access to this private room.

One guy asked if we could show up without this guy who gave up the passes or if we would get in trouble, and we were informed there were no cameras in this ballroom or his office apparently, because he was the only one with access to the camera system and he didn’t need to watch himself on camera.

So, the first day we showed up he gave us a tour of the room and his attached private office. His office was off-limits to us, obviously, but he gave us a supervised tour. This room was massive, had a giant desk with like 4 monitors, several large flat screens, most gaming systems you could think of, and a movie projector. It was insane.

Flash forward a few weeks and I showed up early one Saturday that we were going to practice so I could set up the gaming tables and such. Curiosity got the best of me and, lo and behold, the same key card that got us into the ballroom also accessed that private office. I immediately shut the door because I knew that I really shouldn’t have been in there. Now, the spring of my senior year this head of security guy told us he was leaving to work at a government security facility somewhere in D.C. Don’t ask me where or what capacity, he wouldn’t tell us. He let slip that they were closing this conference room and office after he left and moving it to the top floor of the building, so we had to give him these cards back. He just had us kind of leave them on the table when we left that day.

I forgot. I didn’t realize I still had it until I was downtown for New Year’s Eve my freshman year of college, and found the pass in my car. Again, curiosity got the best of me and I showed up to that old hotel, dressed up because I was meeting friends at another hotel for a NYE party later that night, and what would you know, the key card still worked. To the ball room and now-disused-office. The computer system in the office was shut down, but everything else still operated.

To this day, I’ll dress up in nice looking clothes a couple times a year when I’m back home with that badge around my neck and just nonchalantly walk into the conference room and then to the office and just chill and play games or watch movies or some shit. I never fucked around with the computer equipment or anything, just used the TVs/couches/projector.

Granted, if I ever get caught I’ll probably be arrested and be fucked over, but this is going on for nearly four years since he left and nothing has come of it. I’m not tempting fate and will probably stop showing up after I graduate and start a real job, but it’s been a chill few years.