Game On

“That’s it!” I huff, entering the job trailer with a sharp slamming of the door behind me. New Boss looks up from his desk, a startled expression on his normally placid face. Stripping my heavy fleece lined jacket off my shoulders, I stomp the moisture from my (slipper clad) feet.

“It’s freaking summer everywhere else! 90 freaking degrees! I finally got a day off and it freaking snowed! And there’s bugs in the portajohn!” Freaking is my new favorite word.

The coat snags on my belt buckle. I give it a harsh jerk that snaps it free.

“What kind of bugs?” New boss asks.

I shoot him a sharp look. “An arctically-adapted spider.”

He nods knowingly. I return to my desk and crank up the heater. Civil Soup enters, leaving the door ajar while he helps himself to a fresh cup of coffee.

Shoving away from my desk, I stalk past him and re-slam the door. He looks up.

“This coffee smells funny.”

Smart mouthed Girl struggles against captivity. I fold my arms across my ribs in a vain attempt to thwart her escape.

“Did you put something in it?”

My lips part. The word arsenic balances on the tip of my tongue, wings spread. I clamp my jaws shut and go back to my desk.  The last time I checked, Smart Mouth Girl had nearly gnawed through the duct tape.

“What’s this?” he asks, dragging the can of Folgers Secret Blend out of its hidey hole behind the napkins. “Cinnamon Swirl? Who made this crap?”

I think about my words, measuring inappropriateness against getting fired. “I did. And no one else is complaining,” is what I decide to say.

“Well I am. It tastes like sh*t.”

The door opens and a young man enters. He is dressed in camo and a hard hat, his boots just as muddy as the next guy, and yet he likes froofy coffee in the afternoon.

Smart Mouth Girl breaks free with a gasp. “Civil Soup says the coffee tastes like sh*t,” she tattles. I sigh, slumping my brow into an open palm. Here we go.

“Well,” The Kid says. “Maybe he shouldn’t drink it.” He fills his thermos, winks and puts a dollar in the cup.

Later, after Civil Soup has retreated to his office, I am summonsed to New Boss’s doorway.

“Who buys the coffee?” he asks.

“Me.  Safety. Sometimes The Kid chips in.”

“Then make whatever you want,” he says, “and tell the runner to buy bug-killer for the portajohn. Make sure it’s for ‘arctically-adapted’ spiders.”

I turn to go, feeling both validated and dismissed... Smart Mouthed Girl sticks her tongue out at Civil Soup’s closed door.

Game on, she whispers.