During NaNoWriMo 2016 I ran into a problem. I had finished the story I intended to write. But I still had 2 days to go and I hadn’t hit 50,000 words. In the past I would write another scene that would be in the book, but this time, I creatively had nothing. Zero. Zilch. Nada. My mind had become a blank wasteland with tumbleweeds that were laughing at me. After panicking and having a meltdown, I came up with something to write to get me to the finish line. The following is what I wrote. A view of my usual workday with a twist.
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Abigail Morningstar unlocked the door to her office on a bitterly cold November morning. As she stepped inside it was still cold since the heat had been lowered to sixty-two degrees over the weekend to conserve energy. Abigail found coming to work on a Monday morning to be somewhat unwelcoming. The cold slate gray skies did little to improve her mood. It was already going to be a long and miserable day.
Rattling the cages, she woke up the hamsters who were lying cuddled together in a tight and warm bundle. The furry little creatures poked out their heads and glared at her. With reluctance, they uncurled and waddled into their individual wheels and started their run for the day.
Abigail had barely settled down with her first cup of tea when the phone rang. She set down her cup and picked up the headset.
“Good morning, thank you for calling Gormogon Incorporated, this is Abigail, how may I help you?” she said in a falsely cheerful voice.
“Uh yeah,” the male voice said. “Where do I send my payments?”
Maintaining her upbeat tone with effort, she answered. “Please mail all payments to Gormogon Incorporated, thirty two oh two Cuthshaw Blvd, Richview, Virginia, two three two two four. Please make all checks payable to Gormogon Incorporated.”
“Uh… thanks,” the man said. “What if my payment is a little late?” he asked.
Abigail rolled her eyes. Did they think she worked for free? “If payment is not received within thirty days, a gremlin will be sent to your residence. An additional gremlin will be sent for each month your payment is late for a total of twelve gremlins. If payment is still not received, poltergeists will be sent following the same schedule.”
The man gulped audibly. “Uh… okay,” he said. “Errr, thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” she said. “Have a nice day.” She hung up the phone.
There had been cases where clients had managed with one or two gremlins. By the time they hit the third gremlin, they were paying with interest. Anything to get rid of the gremlins.
One of the gremlins under discussion climbed up on her desk wearing an overcoat and heavy boots with a jaunty little hat on his head.
“Is he late?” he asked in his piping little voice.
“I’d have to check the files,” Abigail replied. “Are you bored?”
“Nah,” he replied. “Just cold. Those hamsters take forever to get the heat going this time of year. You should get one of those mechanical furnaces.”
Abigail shrugged. “Boss says hamsters, we use hamsters,” she replied. “He makes the rules.”
“And the lion share of the money, Abs,” the gremlin commented. “You really should ask for a raise. “
Abigail shrugged again. “I’m leaving at the end of Yule,” she said. “No point arguing about the money he’s never gonna pony up.”
“Well, we’ll certainly miss you here,” the gremlin said, its lips turned down in a pout.
Abigail smiled. “I’ll miss some of you guys as well,” she said.
The phone rang again, and she picked up the handset. “Good morning, Gormogon Incorporated, this is Abigail, how may I help you?” she said.
“Hi Abby, it’s Tracy,” a woman’s voice said over the phone.
Abigail rolled her eyes and the gremlin snickered. “Hi Tracy, how are you?” she asked.
“Oh, I’m fine,” Tracy said. “I need to know when we’re getting a delivery this week?”
“Hold on, let me see if I can pull it up really quick,” Abigail replied.
She spun her hand over the crystal ball and pinks and purples began to swirl inside it. Little streaks of red lightning showed up which made her frown. She turned back to the phone.
“Tracy, when did you put your order in?” she asked.
“Oh, I haven’t put it in yet,” Tracy replied airily. “I just need to know when the delivery is coming.”
Abigail took a deep breath before she let it out just as slowly. “Tracy, we can’t schedule a delivery until your order is in the system,” she said patiently. “As soon as we know what you need, then we can see how quickly we can get it to you.”
“Oh,” Tracy said. “I suppose that does make sense doesn’t it,” she continued. “I am going to need cherry blossom….”
“Cherry blossoms are seasonal, Tracy,” Abigail said. “We only ship that in the spring.”
“You people should really invest in providing those year-round,” Tracy said sounding wise.
Abigail’s face contorted in her irritation as the gremlin, laughing hysterically, rolled off the corner of her desk.
“All our products are one hundred percent natural, Tracy,” Abigail said. “Force grown plants have only a quarter of the magical energies.”
“That’s a very good point,” Tracy conceded as if Abigail hadn’t told her the same thing repeatedly over the last two years. “Oh well, I do need to place an order.”
Abigail kept her voice controlled and upbeat. “Are you going to enter it yourself?” she asked.
“Could you just take it?” Tracy asked.
“Of course,” Abigail said. “Give me a sec to get an order form.”
Abigail quickly snapped her fingers twice and a fairy dragon bearing pen and parchment appeared and dropped them on her desk. She blew a kiss to the dragon, smoothed out the paper, and prepared to write. Her boss tended to call them Ferry dragons.
“All right,” she said. “What can I get for you, Tracy?”
“A case of Rosemary, two bags of Russian sage, German thyme,” the woman said seeming to just be guessing what she needed. “Is the basil still in season?”
“We have some left but that’ll be the last of it until spring,” Abigail replied.
“I’ll take a bag of that,” Tracy said. “I think that’s all.”
“Do you need chives?” Abigail asked. Tracy always needed chives and always forgot to order them.
“No, I think I have enough,” Tracy said.
“Okay,” Abigail replied. That was Tracy code for ‘I’ll call back in two days for an emergency order of chives I should have ordered when you asked me.
“Thank you so much, Abigail,” Tracy said.
“You’re quite welcome, Tracy,” Abigail replied. “Have a nice day.” She hung up before Tracy turned the conversation about what her grandson Steve was doing for Christmas this year.
On top of the filing cabinet, the fairy dragon was preening, its wings fluttering iridescent under the fluorescent lights.
The hamsters in their wheels had finally gotten the office temperature up to sixty-eight degrees and Abigail had finally taken off her gloves when her boss, Ronald strolled into the office around ten am. She looked up and plastered a smile on her face.
“Good morning,” she said.
He smiled back oblivious to her fake cheer. “Good morning Abigail,” he said. “Anything come in?”
“Just the usual,” she replied. “Tracy ordered her supplies.”
“Which Tracy?” he asked as he kept walking back to his office.
Abigail sighed, picked up her notebook, and followed him back as she usually did. “Tracy at the Silver Center,” she said. “Not Tracy with the Pagan Sisterhood.”
“That’s right,” he said. “It’s Silver Center week to order.”
“Every two weeks,” Abigail replied. She wondered, as she often did if he ever listened to himself talk.
“It should be a slow week,” Ronald said.
Abigail parked her face in neutral. The last slow week they had was two years ago. She didn’t say anything as Ronald kept talking as he set up his crystal ball.
“Do you think you can work on my crystal ball today?” he asked.
“I’ll try,” she replied, as she always did. “Same issues?”
“I can’t get my mail again,” he said.
“Mystic snakes are temperamental,” Abigail said. Of course, Ronald always managed to annoy them so it was no surprise his mail delivery was questionable. She never had a problem with her mail because she treated them with respect.
“And my CB 10 is acting up,” he said referring to the latest crystal ball upgrade.
“I’ll take a look at it,” Abigail said, as she always did.
“CB 7 was just fine,” he continued to complain. “I don’t know why they had to change it.”
Abigail said nothing. There was no point. If CB 7 had been so fine, he shouldn’t have upgraded. Why did he upgrade to CB 10? Because it was free. As the warehouseman, George said, Ronald would spend five cents to make a penny.
“I’ll get back to working on the inventory,” Abigail said. Anything to escape his presence for a few precious moments. Without waiting she fled back to her office.
The gremlins were dancing on her desk when she got back to the front office. She heard the roaring of a truck engine which could only mean that George was back from his first deliveries. She heard the sound of foul language as George argued with the dragon where the engine would be. From the sounds of it, he was losing badly. Again.
A moment later he stumbled into the office and handed over the paperwork from the deliveries. “You got a backorder on the bee balm again,” he said.
“You didn’t take the bee balm?” Abigail asked. “Why not?
“Hoffs didn’t have any in stock,” George replied.
Abigail sighed. “Marvelous,” she said. She took the paperwork and handed it to one of the gremlins to mark as delivered.
“Did Ronald pick up the mouthwash yet?” George asked.
Abigail leaned over her desk and yelled. “RONALD! MOUTHWASH!”
There was a moment of silence and then, “IN THE BACK OF THE VAN!”
Abigail looked at George. “That answer your question?” she asked.
George mumbled something Abigail suspected was a curse of some kind and then he shook off his irritation. “Do you want to label the bottles for the body elixir while I mix it up?” he asked.
Abigail gave him a look. “Do I want to stand in a freezing warehouse to stick plastic labels on gallon jugs for an hour?” she asked. “Seriously? You think that’s something I want to do?”
George just chuckled. It wasn’t the first time she nailed him over his choice of words. “Okay then, will you help me by labeling bottles?”
Abigail sighed. She wondered what would happen if she just said no. She was always helping George, but he wasn’t much help to her. She wasn’t going to let him anywhere near her crystal ball.
“Fine,” she said. “How many cases do you need?”
“Twenty-one,” George said promptly. “I need to build inventory for the witch convention next week.”
Abigail did the mental calculation. Four gallons per case times twenty-one cases was eighty-four. “Do you need labels too?”
“If you don’t mind,” George said.
Would it matter if she did? “Okay, when do you need me?” she asked.
“In about ten minutes I’ll be ready for you,” George said. He grinned at her and walked out. She heard him yell at the dragon in the van and it snarled something rude back.
Abigail dropped into her chair and brushed aside one of the gremlins that had fallen asleep after dancing during the conversation she had with George. She saw one of the mystic snakes slither by on its way to Ronald’s office. Apparently, he had temporarily appeased them and was getting his mail. That would keep him busy for a while and out of her hair until he pissed them off again.
Sometimes she really hated her job.
