Lizz Lund - Mina Kitchen 01 - Kitchen Addiction!

by Lizz Lund

  On my way out with the boys, I made sure to lovingly hiss in my kid sister’s ear that maybe she might want to try out the numerous pregnancy test kits that were hiding in my closet. She gulped her milk and nodded.

  I crammed into the backseat of the Aspire next to Jim, with Norman sitting shotgun and Bauser driving. We led the parade with Vito and Ike bringing up the rear. We turned right on Millersville Pike, heading downtown, while Ike and Vito made a left toward Rohrerstown Road and the animal shelter. Part of me nervously hoped Ike wouldn’t get inspired to dump the Ratties there, if we found out that Ethel was actually pregnant.

  Bauser pulled up to the Chestnut Street entrance and parked. Which was a big no-no: there’s a ten minute limit for loading or unloading stuff.

  “Ummm,” I said, looking at the sign.

  “We’re unloading,” Bauser said. I looked at him. He shrugged. “We’re unloading insurance papers. Sort of.” We trudged through the glass doors, with Jim hopping along, while Bauser carded us inside.

  “Can I help you?” an anonymous uniformed security guard asked at the front desk. Huh. Where the hell was he when I was getting konked on the noggin?

  “EEJIT,” Norman replied, nodding his head upward.

  The guard looked at us. We nodded. Even Jim. Then he shrugged. “IDs, please,” he said.

  Norman and Bauser produced their badges, and I produced mine – albeit after digging around in my very clean purse that still held the same old crap. After flipping some coupons, a Tylenol and a Tampax onto the counter, I withdrew the badge just as the guard waved me off. “Lady, I believe you, I believe you,” he said. I shrugged.

  The guard looked at Jim. “He’s with me,” Bauser said.

  “Is that a dog for handicapped service?” the guard snapped.

  “Yup,” Bauser said. Well, at least he was only half lying. Jim was handicapped.

  I looked at the elevators. They were sans ‘Out of Order’ signage today. “Is it okay to use the elevators today?” I asked.

  “Sure! What’s wrong with the damn elevators?” the guard barked.

  “Uh, nothing,” I mumbled, and shuffled toward the elevator bank and pressed the up button. I looked sideways from Bauser to Norman and down at Jim. They each exchanged peripheral raised eyebrows at me. The elevator bank binged and all three elevators opened. I sighed and looked at Bauser. He pulled out a quarter.

  “Call it,” he said.

  “Tails.”

  Bauser looked. “Heads,” he replied, and held open the middle elevator door. We all shuffled in. Bauser pressed ‘7’. The doors closed.

  “What would you have called if it had been tails?” Norman asked me.

  “Individual elevators, with Jim using the stairs as backup,” I said.

  “Wow. You really do have a paranoid thing about these elevators.”

  “That’s only because they hate me.”

  “Oh,” Norman said, and rubbed at his non-gunshot wound.

  EEJIT’s lobby seemed to be back to normal. There were no more mega fans blowing smoke through the lobby’s glass doors. In their place instead was a lot of stale, smoked fertilizer-esque smells.

  We held our breath and our noses while Bauser carded us through the glass doors. Inside was worse. A lot worse. “Cripes, haven’t they heard of air ionizers?” Norman coughed. “Or Air Fresh?”

  “Aah, there they are, on time as usual,” Howard cried.

  We looked down the hall and realized we’d stepped into the middle of something, and it wasn’t flaming feces. It was a company meeting, which Howard liked to hold in the main corridor. Howard thought this was a brilliant management technique because it made everyone stand up and force them to be succinct. This might have worked really well if anyone else but Howard talked. As it was, How-weird’s various elevator speech narratives usually morphed into full-blown water cooler treatises.

  Norman pushed his baseball cap back from his forehead. “Oh boy,” he said. Bauser and I gulped. Since Bauser and I were already fired, we didn’t really have much at stake. But Norman usually slid under the being-late radar mostly because he normally works about 75 hours a week – and is pretty much incredibly indispensible. But How-weird was in a full-blown mode of some kind.

  “As I was saying,” Howard sneered at us, “it’s obvious we’re not working in ideal conditions. But we’re not a charity, either,” he added. I looked around and saw a sea of folded arms, deadpan stares and thin lips. And I saw Lee, taking notes, sitting on a chair next to Howard.

  Hey, wait a minute. Sitting?!? I never rated a seat, even back when I had to run that stupid 45 minute slideshow presentation of Howard’s: ‘Toilets and You: The Bottom Line on Restroom Hygiene’. Which, of course, we all had to watch while standing.

  “Now, just to clarify,” Howard smirked, “it’s perfectly understandable if you have documented medical reasons that prevent your working in the office until the landlord mediates the, uh, air quality issues.”

  “That explains it,” Norman whispered. “They didn’t spring for renting air cleaners because they’re foisting it on the owner of the building. They really are that cheap.”

  “However, unless you have bonafide work which can be done from home – and of course approved by your manager –” Howard all but winked at the managers a.k.a. his golf buddies – “well then your time is not considered HW – Home Work,” he finished. He put his thumbs under his make-believe suspenders – his armpits – and waddled down the center of his employee lineup. “Now, of course, we are all professionals, and most of us, luckily, are able to do some work at home.”

  “Except for the golf course,” an anonymous voice grumbled from behind a cubicle wall.

  Howard heard. “Ha ha ha. Well some business meetings are more pleasant than others,” he said.

  Uh oh, I thought. Howard didn’t break into a rage. He actually tried to be pleasant. This was going to be pretty bad.

  “However, EEJIT’s policy is an Effhue policy,” he continued, “and in these circumstances, especially as our corporate offices are going through similar difficulties, the HW policy has changed. From now on, an HW day does not count as a full working day. An HW day will now accrue 5.6 working hours. This means that if you enjoy an entire work week of HW days, you’ll owe EEJIT – and Effhue – 12 working hours for that week.”

  I was starting to feel light-headed. I couldn’t believe my ears. Was this kind of Dickensonian stuff legal? Where was Bob Cratchit when you needed him? Or Father Christmas? Then again, it was only August. Wrong time of year, I supposed.

  “Also, HW days will now accrue 0.435 benefit hours, and not the 0.63 hours of an office working day.” This prompted a buzz of mumbling and a lot of expletives in various languages. ‘Dirty dog of a flea bitten llama’ in Hindu was the only one I recognized.

  “Now, now,” How-weird said, and smiled, “we also know many of you, as salaried business professionals, occasionally work over the appointed 40 hour work week. And while many of you take this in stride, some of you feel your ‘extra time’ should be compensated.” Howard’s smile drew even wider. I noticed he had spinach in his teeth. Probably from gnawing on a vegan programmer. “In these instances, you are encouraged to discuss comp time with your manager.”

  There was a lot more mumbling and more ‘dirty dogs’ about that. Everyone knew How-weird didn’t hire or appoint a manager who didn’t buckle under his fat little thumb.

  “Also, ALSO,” Howard shouted, trying to break through the now very loud non-mumbling, “comp time will no longer be a day for a day. If you work the entire weekend, your manager can approve one day of comp time to you,” he said.

  Silence. This was bad. Very, very bad.

  “Of course, with a two weeks request notice,” he ended.

  I heard some rustling behind me, and then heard Achmed hissing at Mohammed in Arabic. Out of habit I hissed back, “Huh?” at them while keeping my eyes straight forward.

&n
bsp; “I have said, that even while working in the times of the Tyrant, the hours of our lives were respected more during imprisonment,” Ahmed hissed back.

  “Or terminated gracefully,” Mohammed whispered back sagely.

  “I work in kabutz more sympathetic to hard work,” grumbled Tevloh.

  I shrugged philosophical. “Well, at least it’s no worse than phone sales,” I said.

  “You have done the phone sales?”

  “Were you that desperately poor?”

  “You were prostitute of the phone?”

  “Did they arrest you?”

  “Did you sometimes wish to kill yourself?”

  “Yes, yes and no, no no! ” I answered. “Hey, I paid my way through college with that job,” I said.

  Some muttering and clucking went on behind me in Arabic, Hindi, Israeli and what I think I recognized as Norwegian. Then I felt various pats on my shoulders. “You should be very much impressed,” the anonymous hands patted, while we all maintained eyes forward. I nodded thanks and felt very, very proud indeed.

  CHAPTER 9

  (Wednesday afternoon)

  “Well, seeing as we’ve all broken out into our little side bar conversations, I guess our new policies are clear to everyone. So quit wasting time and get back to working,” Howard hollered.

  I looked and saw Chandtishe Pakashakaswyswaami’s cane plunk smack dab into the middle of How-weird’s foot. Chandtishe is about 1,000 years old, has a limp, and was literally counting the days toward his retirement a.k.a. Emancipation from EEJIT. Thanks to EEJIT’s legal system, it had only taken about 10 years for him to receive a bonafide green card. 15 years later – just last year, actually – he had attained U.S. Citizenship through EEJIT’s legal counsel, after working an additional sixteen months of twelve-hour days. Now, at long last, he was due to retire in February.

  I smiled and waved to him. He smiled and waved back, and leaned down hard on the cane, piercing Howard’s instep. Howard gritted, picked up Chandtishe’s cane and removed his shishkabobed foot. Chandtishe faked an elaborate apology and then gave me the thumbs up as How-weird turned and bent over his foot. Chandtishe had always liked me. I figured How-weird was in for a lot more sore piddy’s once Chandtishe got wind I got fired via answering machine.

  I watched How-weird grit his teeth at Chandtishe and start to limp our way.

  “Hey, Norman, you might want to get lost now,” I whispered at him.

  Norman rocked back on his heels, pulled his cap down and folded his arms. “You know, I’ve been thinking,” he said slowly. “I’ve been thinking that maybe Betty’s girls are old enough to get their own jobs.”

  I looked carefully over at Bauser. He was as wide-eyed as I was. Jim wagged his tail back and forth at us all and fell over again.

  “Well if it isn’t the two Losers,” How-weird jeered. I gulped. I was already fired by proxy, which was bad enough. Now I had to get fired in duplicate? Publicly? Yeeshkabiddle.

  “Just give us our paperwork, Howard, and we’re out of here,” Bauser said.

  “We just came to give you these back,” I said and handed over the envelope with the insurance papers. Bauser rolled his eyes at me. I stared back at him and shrugged. What was I supposed to do, eat them?

  Howard snatched the envelope from my hand. “You’re welcome,” I quipped. Well… sort of quipped. Kind of.

  “What have you done with these papers? Nothing! That’s what!” Howard shouted at me, and that’s when Jim, for the first time ever, growled. Howard took a step back.

  “Actually, Mina’s contacted the insurance company, forwarded the accident information, and you’re due to be inspected by an insurance claims representative any day now,” Bauser said.

  I looked at Bauser, amazed. I didn’t know I’d done all that. Maybe the konk on the noggin made me more productive? Not likely. So I figured Bauser had done it, since he had worked at EEJIT since Day One. And I was okay with him talking to the insurance company and saying he was me, unless he used falsetto. “Mind you, an arsonist is at fault. However, the contract you signed says that if EEJIT is in non-compliance of just one code requirement, Mid-Atlantic Liability and Culpability, PLC can default for breach of contract,” Bauser added.

  “Yeah, sure,” Howard shrugged.

  “Which means they won’t pay a plug nickel,” Bauser explained.

  Howard spluttered.

  Norman chimed in, “Yup, even if the fire was caused by an arsonist or act of war or terrorism. Apparently, some EEJIT representative signed, and continued, a contract with these limitations.”

  “Which, by the way, Howard, was you,” Bauser finished.

  I made to shoot him a worried glance, but held it at bay. Was he bluffing? He certainly was acting very melodramatic movie-like. But he was still wearing his shades.

  “Ha ha, Bauser, that’s a good one. Let’s just see,” Howard smirked, and pulled out the 4-inch thick tome of contract negotiations between EEJIT, Effhue and Mid-Atlantic Liability and Culpability, PLC. I sighed. We would be standing here for years. Even if Howard could read.

  “Page 558, paragraph 7, item AAAA.aaaa.iiii.09.iv.aa.4,” Bauser responded confidently.

  Yeesh. I guess my concussed head had me knocked out so long that Bauser got bored enough to read through all this stuff.

  “Okay, well, let’s just see here,” Howard muttered, riffling through the pages.

  Norman peered over his shoulder. “Page 558 comes after page 555,” he said. “Here, let me help you.”

  So, for what I guessed was our brief flash of glory, Howard stood there semi-publicly humiliated with some proverbial egg – a la flaming feces – flung at him. Norman read out loud, “Paragraph seven, item AAAA.aaaa.iiii.09.iv.aa.4 clearly states, ‘In the event of any kind of fire, by natural or unnatural events including arson, war, terrorism or insanity,’ ” (yes, it really said that – I figured whoever drafted the document had met Howard) “ ‘Mid-Atlantic Liability and Culpability, Ltd. will hold this contract null and void. Also, this contract will be non-negotiable and void upon inspection and proof of non-compliance of all and any applicable local or national fire and electric codes.’”

  Howard started sweating. “So? What does this prove?”

  “I’ve been telling you for six years now that the server room and cooling units don’t comply with code,” Bauser said.

  “Yeah, well, uh….you never gave me the particulars,” Howard faked.

  “Yes I did, Howard. I emailed them to you, and copied in Effhue. I’m sure you’ll be able to find them in your past emails. I know I’ve kept my copies.” Bauser smiled. Which was more than a little disturbing. Because I had never, ever seen Bauser smile before. Not a real toothy smile, anyway. For the first time I noticed the very large gap between Bauser’s front teeth. It was wide enough to spit through. Ack.

  “Heh, heh, heh, well jokes on me,” Howard said awkwardly. “Hey, listen, we’ve all been under a lot of stress lately. How about I treat you to a nice lunch? Say, uh, the Fiesta Flamingo?”

  The Fiesta Flamingo is a sandwich shop that is adored by Lancastrians for serving really huge Southwest style sandwiches really cheap. A real big spender move on Howard’s part.

  Bauser said, “I don’t think so, Howard. But thanks anyway.” Jeez. He really did fit into Lancaster; he was even nice when he was getting the heave-ho. “How do we get our termination papers processed?” he asked. “I mean, normally we’d go to Mina. But you fired her, too,” he said.

  “Hey, wait a minute, you know I was only joking. I panicked,” Howard said.

  “I know. You panic a lot.”

  Howard stared into Bauser’s mirrored shades for what seemed a long time. His image stared right back at him. “Fine, fine!” he yelled at last, throwing up his hands. “I’ve had enough of the Mod Squad anyway. Just go see Lee. She’ll take care of you!”

  He backed up, bumping into Lee. “Ah! There you are!” he squealed. “Great
! Just take care of these losers and process their termination papers,” Howard shouted, pointing at me and Bauser. Jim growled again at Howard and barked. Howard leapt backward on his stabbed foot, and then hopped off onto his good one. I started to think that for my next job interview, I should probably take Jim along. He’d be able to sniff out in a few minutes what would probably take me a few years to figure out about the next crazy boss.

  “Of course, Howard,” Lee said. “My pleasure.” There was a cruel edge to her voice. Clearly, she wasn’t from Lancaster. “Follow me,” she said over her shoulder as she started waddling down the corridor. Bauser and I looked at each other and shrugged.

  “C’mon, Jim,” Bauser said, and we started to walk away.

  “And where do you think you’re going?” Howard bellowed as Norman followed us. We both turned around. Norman stood shaking his head and opening up his backpack.

  “Here,” he said, handing various notebooks, papers and CDs to Howard. He zipped his backpack up and started away.

  “Hey, I don’t need you to babysit those two. I need you to work out the algorithm faults,” Howard called after him.

  Norman turned around. “There are no algorithm faults. There are data faults. And no thanks, Howard,” he said.