You’ll have to find me first. I’m the best at hiding, at picking out choice hiding spots. You might walk into a sparsely furnished room, you’d think, OK, well, if he’s not behind the couch, then he’s not here, because there’s nowhere else to hide. Wrong. I could be hiding in that space in between the ceiling and the lights. What do you call that space? There’s a name for it. Do you know what I’m talking about? Like in an office. Like there are those tiles that you push up and there’s a little space before the real ceiling. OK, yeah, it’s a sparsely furnished office room, I wasn’t very specific. But that’s OK, that doesn’t change anything, because that’s where I’d be hiding, and you’d pop your head inside, you’d think, nope, no way he’s hiding out here, on to the next room.

You might be saying to yourself, why would I tell? Why would I give away such a good hiding spot? Because while it might be a good hiding spot to you, the average hider, to a professional such a myself, that’s actually a pretty poor hiding spot. And by me giving you a supposed hint as to where you might want to start looking, I’m only further guaranteeing that you’ll definitely never find me. I’m already in your head, before I’ve even given you a chance to count to twenty, I’m making it even more difficult that you’ll ever figure out where I am.

Because, OK, picture yourself back in that office. You open the door, this time you think to yourself, well, normally I’d pass right by, but now I’m definitely at least going to poke up around in that ceiling space. Go ahead, be my guest. Now you’re only giving me even more time to quietly sneak out of my real hiding spot, in that giant file cabinet on the other side of the room. See, it was a hasty decision, yeah, but it’s still a great hiding spot. And now that I’ve got you wasting time pushing up ceiling tiles, it’s as easy as slipping out quietly and further eluding my chances of ever getting caught.

I know what you’re thinking: stupid, stupid Rob. Why are you being so dumb, offering up the entire plan? Now all I have to do is walk into the room, check out the file cabinets, make sure you’re not inside, and then make my way to the ceiling. But I’m not the stupid one, you’re the stupid one. Because I’m not even in this office room. So far everything I’ve said has been a cleverly planned ruse, designed to make you spend at least half an hour locked inside, pointlessly opening up cabinets, pushing aside ceiling tiles, and then spending even more time trying get those ceiling tiles back into place. It’s not as easy at it looks, especially in this office building, because the ceiling is so high up you need a step ladder to reach it.

Or maybe I am in the ceiling. You’ll never know. And if you’ve made it to this paragraph, I doubt that you’ll ever challenge me to a game of hide and seek. You’ll think to yourself, no way, Rob’s already thought this out further than I care to spend time playing and, ultimately being soundly defeated.

It’s because I’m the best at finding the best hiding spots. I think I’m technically still currently playing at least half a dozen games of manhunt. It’s like the Korean War, nobody’s playing anymore, but the game never ended on account of me never having been found out. It’s like, if you really, really never want to see me again, challenge me to a game, I hide, you seek. I’ll disappear from your life completely. Everywhere you look, that’s where I won’t be, I’ll make sure of it.

And that’s how I eventually want to make my exit from this mortal coil. I’m not going to waste my time saying goodbyes or writing out a will or making it like, ooh, I’ve only got a little bit of time left, I’ve better make every minute with my loved ones count. Nope, I’m going to challenge the whole family to a game of hide and seek, and they’ll be like, what? Are you serious? What’s going on? And I’ll just scream out, go! And that’ll be it. Poof. You’ll never find me or see me ever again. I’m the best at finding hiding spots.