smoke signals

An e-mail came from head office saying that the shop was having problems with ‘frozen images’, so we would have to hire a helicopter, and one of us would have to hang out of it fiddling with something on the roof, while being talked through the process by the IT department over the phone.

However, this turned out to be a dream.

In real life I volunteered to unpack throughout Christmas. Usually we drag some thug in from the streets but they tend to ‘crack’ after a while and then the results can be messy, so - figuring that it will keep me away from the shop floor - I volunteered. By the end of it (stuck out the back with only a lot of cardboard boxes and local radio for company) I expect to have devolved into a squat ape-like creature, with improved musculature but few remaining social skills. Barbara said I could stop if I get ‘fed up’. By that stage I will no longer be able to communicate verbally, so the first they’ll know about it is when I set fire to everything. If I manage to discover fire.

Still, I will miss the occasional felicitous at-the-counter moment. Like when, a week or so ago, a young man came in and bought Teach Yourself Basic Accounting and Spank Me at the same time. Was he buying the accounting book as camouflage, or was he a trainee accountant trying to look more interesting? Discuss.