Introducing: Kitties!
I’d like to introduce my kitties! The one on the left is Zoro, and the one on the right is Sanji! I got them when they fit perfectly in a small Amazon box. Despite their names, they are both girls, but what else would I name the wings of the Pirate King?
…Time for this week’s story…
The Manager
“I’d like to speak to your manager.” Karen looked down her nose at the stupid employee who didn’t know how to do her job. The fifth incompetent employee that day, this was without a doubt the new pandemic.
The employee soon returned alongside a tall man who looked too unprofessional to be a proper manager. Karen could tell by looking at him that he was no different than the stupid girl that fetched him. He wore cheap slacks and his brown hair had no product in it. The look on his face was a window into his big, empty head.
“Hello ma’am, I’m the manager, Keith. Lisa tells me you’re having an issue with something you purchased here?”
Karen winced and shuddered at his name. I can’t take someone named Keith seriously, she thought.
“I need to return a product and your employee is telling me that you won’t accept the return, which is not what your policy says.”
“Okay, well, we do accept returns. Do you have the product and receipt?”
“Of course I do, I’m not an idiot.” Karen glared at Lisa while reaching into her purse to retrieve the month-old receipt. Smiling smugly, she handed it to the manager.
“And, which of these products are we returning today?”
From a plastic bag, Karen retrieved a used loofah with the tag still on, its cardboard warped by water damage. She reached out to hand it to the manager, but he recoiled. As she suspected, the useless nitwit stood there with his mouth open like a trout, eyes bouncing between her and the loofah.
“Your sign says ‘satisfaction guaranteed,’ doesn’t it?” Karen asked.
“Well, yes, but…”
“But? I have been using this for three weeks and my skin feels… off. The last time I was here you didn’t have the brand I typically get so I got one of these and they’re terrible. I would like to exchange it for the brand I normally get.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but I can’t do that. It isn’t hygienic.”
“But, your sign says, satisfaction guaranteed.”
“Yes, so if your shopping experience was fine, then we have accomplished that.”
“But, I’m not satisfied with the product I got here!” Karen’s voice screeched and her foot stomped on the ground, shaking the loofah in the man’s face as he backed away from it.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but I have to ask you to leave. Please do not come back, we do not need your business here.”
Karen took a dramatically long, deep breath. Eyes wide, mouth agape, her body went stiff, exemplifying an exclamation point. A hand clutched her chest.
“You! Wha-? I should! I’m going to call corporate! You’re all going to be fired! All of you!” Karen screeched.
“Ma’am, please leave.” Keith put his hands up like a barrier between them.
Incensed, Karen stomped and yelled as she left the store. In a rage, she found herself in her car driving down the road in the dead of night. She muttered to herself and cursed the incompetence of everyone else in the world. In the blink of an eye, her lights shined on something large in the road and she slammed on her brakes, swerving to avoid it. Her adept driving saved her and the thing in the road.
“A cow?” Karen stepped out of her car and into the road. In every direction was darkness. After taking in her surroundings, she marched to the cow and shoved it to make it go away. She could have easily driven around it to go home, but she insisted that the cow move. At last, it did. That was the first thing to go her way all day. Smiling in the middle of the crossroads, she said, “I wish I could always get things done like that.”
A column of fire erupted in front of her and quickly dissipated, leaving in its wake a handsome man in a suit sporting white wings and a long, thin tail with an arrowhead at the tip.
“Shit, it’s you.” He put his hand over his face in frustration, fingers pulling to the bridge of his nose. “Can you please clarify that wish so I can leave?”
“Who the hell are you? Was that your cow?”
“Was that my cow? Look, can you clarify that wish? Do you want to move cows? Clear road obstructions? Move heavy objects? ‘Get things done like that’ is pretty broad.” He put his hands up to pantomime quotes.
“Oh my God! You’re the devil! Why do you have wings?”
“Because I used to be an angel, you idiot! I understand people like you are a test of patience, but clarify your damn wish!”
“I get a wish?”
“You’re in the middle of a crossroads. You can make a deal with me to get a wish,” the devil explained through gritted teeth.
Karen paused, thinking back on her day. Never again would she have such a day. “I want to have the power that managers have wherever I go.”
“Granted. Bye.” The devil vanished.
Karen awoke the next day, wondering if it was a dream. To test it, she retraced her steps from the day before, going to each store and exchanging the items that had been denied the day before. The employees were happy to comply. Moments after she exchanged her loofah, an employee approached her with a customer in tow.
“Yes?” Karen asked.
“This lady is having an issue,” said the skinny young man in a collared shirt.
“Why is that my problem?”
“Because, you’re the manager.” The young man walked away, leaving Karen with the angry woman. Before Karen could grasp what was happening, the irate customer began her tirade.
Everywhere she went, the worst customers with the most asinine complaints were always brought to her or found her themselves. She tried wearing disguises while out in public, but they always found her.
Karen got her wish. She was forever the manager everywhere she went.