Hi there, guys and dolls! Well, we sure had some fun at the office this week. Made workday Wednesday just fly by, let me tell you!

It all started late last week when Susie was promoted from the Steno Pool to the grand honor and responsibility of Supply Clerk. And boy howdy, she took her job seriously. Anyhoo, by Thursday afternoon, that girl was wandering around the office with a pen and clipboard, muttering furiously about modernization, mechanization and efficiency, scaring the crap out of all of us. What in the world was that girl looking to supply us with? Would there be paper clips, carbon paper, typewriter ribbon and heaven forbid, toilet paper (that’s right, although this blog is set fictionally in yours truly’s time of the vague 1950’s, it’s being written in 2020, forever now known as the great toilet paper panic… nope, can’t even escape it here….). Susie just smiled her Susie sunshine smile and said we’d all be happy…

Friday was just as furious and frantic. Susie’s blasting orders out on the phone and all we could hear was snippets of, “must be here Monday…” “does it take nickels, dimes and quarters….” “how often does that get refilled…” and the most curious, “…so then you just kick it” coming from her corner of the building. I’ll be the first to admit that we were all a little wary of the shape of things to come. The maniacal glint in her eye with the rush of corporate control and power all going to her head, we did not know what was going to happen come Monday, but all Susie said was that we’ll all be pleased.

And the glorious Monday came (um, did I just describe going to the day job as glorious – oh well, stay tuned…). There was Susie, bright eyed and bushy tailed, ready to take us on a tour of the new modern office that she supplied for our demands. Shiny new vending machines! She got us everything. Of course, there were the usual suspects of sandwiches, coffee, and candy bars, but our little smart Susie understood our true needs. As in whisky, dimestore paperbacks (easy to read in the file folders), mambo records (how about a limbo, anyone), perfume, clean undies (I’m not saying who I saw using that one, but let’s just say Rhonda’s reputation is justified), cigarettes (prelit for your convenience, natch), and the most popular, Rum dispenser (Daiquiri, everyone?).

So by the time Tuesday quitting time rolled around, nobody was leaving. Why bother? Fresh unmentionables, cocktails, dance music, bar snacks, what more does the office worker need to get through the workday into evening into night into next morning (it was only after Dave from accounting pointed out that this solar/lunar cycle had gone on right outside our corporate windows that we realized how much time had passed).

Then we began to run out of nickels. The quarters and dimes had been swallowed up first, but the party was over when we realized that we couldn’t jimmy out any more change from anyone’s pockets and the whisky had run dry (forget the rum, that happened before quitting time, day one).

Of course, the real downer was when the big boss laid down the law, stating that his demand for productivity had not been met by the supply of his workforce (that would be us poor workers).

So bye-bye, big shiny vending machines of our dreams. Out they rolled, while Susie slunk back to the Steno pool. Fun’s fun til someone loses a Mai-Tai….

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more posts. And don’t forget to give my Poppy Cove Mysteries a try if you haven’t already.

Toodles, Barbara Jean