disgruntled employee’s exit strategy. [trigger #70]

Tyrese has had enough! The snickering, the homophobic comments, the tampons one of his co-workers would so hilariously put in his desk drawers. Forget the fact that Tyrese could beat the living shit out of any of his male co-workers. Maybe that was why they were so threatened by him, a gay man who could kick their ass didn’t fit in their tiny minds.

He’d kept silent for a long time, because the job market sucked and this job paid well. Still, a man has his limits. He’d gone into his supervisor’s office for the third time to ask for disciplinary action to be taken. Rick, his supervisor, had played it off once again as if it was no big deal, just some good natured ribbing. A few minutes later Tyrese noticed that several other men were in Rick’s office and they were laughing good and hard at something, his request for discipline no doubt.

No, Tyrese was going to have to take matters into his own hands. He was going to go out in a blaze of glory. He was going to walk into Rick’s office on Monday, and ask to talk for the fourth and final time. He knew exactly how it would go.

“Sure, Tyrese, sure.” Rick would say, “What’s on your mind?” As if the asshole didn’t already know.

Tyrese would then walk behind Rick’s desk, grab his face, and kiss that sniveling, homophobic little shit right on his mouth. If all goes well, Rick will attempt to take a swing at this point, which Tyrese will then use as a good excuse to lay Rick out for the entire office to see. Assault charges will most likely not be an issue, since pressing said charges would require admitting to getting one’s ass kicked by “a queer,” as Rick likes to call him.

Yes, Monday was going to be a good day.

futuristic bounty hunter. [trigger #47]

Imagination is the only thing that gets Jim through the day. He’s a server. Not the waiter kind, the subpoena kind. He tracks people down, does what he needs to do to get close to them, and then tricks them into admitting their identity so he can serve them with legal documents. Often they are aware of the coming documents, and they are trying desperately to avoid them, making Jim’s job even more difficult.

No one is ever happy to have met Jim. He’s never giving away money, its never good news. You don’t hire someone to track someone else down to give them good news, you track them down yourself for that. If Jim is involved, it’s usually because the shit is about to hit the fan in someone else’s life. The angry yelling recipients of Jim’s servers are the easy ones to deal with. It’s the quiet, dejected ones that break Jim’s heart and make him wish he could just throw away the summons, or the divorce papers, or whatever else he might be delivering.

It’s not a fun job.

That’s where Jim’s imagination comes in. Without it, he would have quit long ago. Jim has to imagine different scenarios other than the reality of what he is doing to keep himself sane.

He pretends to be a time-traveler from the future, delivering important information to someone they’ll need down the line. He pretends to be a ninja, training for an assassination that will subvert an evil political structure.

His favorite thing to pretend is that he is a futuristic bounty hunter, tracking down and killing the most evil people in the universe. He has to get close, confirm their identity, and take them down. It makes it easier to serve papers to a sad single mom if she isn’t a single mom at all, but is instead the leader of a huge intergalactic human trafficking ring. It takes a little effort to keep his imagined scenario in place when all he does is hand them an envelope and say, “You’ve been served,” as opposed to shooting them with a blaster or something. Still, Jim’s been at this a long time, so he’s an old pro at filling in the gaps and keeping his mental adventure airtight.

hot dog vendor saves the day. [trigger #12]

“Listen, you have to get over here to Capitol Hill.”

“What? Why?”

“Donald Glover is here in Seattle a day early. He’s playing a secret show upstairs at Vita. All you need to get in is a $5 cover, but only the first 80 people get in. I need to go, get here soon. Bye.”

“Bye.”

I put my phone back in my pocket and stare. This is terrible. It should be wonderful news, but it’s Wednesday, two days before payday, my bank account is tapped out as usual and there is no way I still have five bucks in my wallet at this point in the week.

I pull out the wallet, thumbing the outside in fear of checking its contents. Taking a deep breath, I unfold the wallet and pull apart the edges to glance inside. To my utter astonishment, a five dollar bill sits there waiting for me.

“What the what?” I whisper to myself. Then it hits me, I remember how I still have five bucks.

It was Tuesday, I was on my way to grab lunch at a hot dog stand when just before I got to the cart to place my order some asshole muscles in front of me and placed an order first. I wanted to do something, but it was one of those days and I didn’t have the energy for an argument.

Apparently, the hot dog guy was watching, because after I ordered a chili dog and a coke, the man just slaps my shoulder and says, “It’s ok buddy, this one’s on me.”

That explains the five bucks in my wallet. Thanks to hot dog guy, I’ll have the money to get into the Donald Glover show. That is, if I can get to Capitol Hill quickly.

God bless you hot dog guy, God bless you.