The exercise:
Write something that has to do with: the suggestion box.
There were about a dozen people lined up at the door of the bakery at opening this morning. Things were pretty steadily hectic for the first hour or so and then settled down for the remainder of my time there. Actually was able to leave at noon, instead of working until one like I did last week.
Hoping for more of the same tomorrow, as I've oh so wisely accepted an evening shift at the community centre on top of my bakery duties. So I'll likely be doing 8 to 12 at the bakery and then 4 to 8 at the community centre.
I'm sure that will end up being a good idea. Maybe I can tell Max I'm working on the moon as well, just to make sure he thinks that I work everywhere.
Mine:
Needs more salt.
"What does?"
"Everything, probably. Bloody peasants."
"Trash it. Next."
Waitresses should put their phone numbers on the bill.
"Is that written in spilled cologne? Trash it."
Portion sizes need to be bigger. Especially dessert. Especially the cheesecake.
"I can smell the obesity from here. Trash it."
The music is too loud.
"Tell Granny to take out her hearing aid. Toss it. Next?"
The music is too quiet.
"Of course. Bin it."
Waitresses should address customers with more compliments. Like 'Good evening hot stuff', or 'Has anyone ever told you that you look like Brad Pitt?', or 'Hubba hubba, lucky me!', or 'Would y-"
"Good. God. This is the worst idea ever."
"Shall I take the suggestion box outside and drop a match in it?"
"That's the best idea I've heard all day."
2 comments:
Don't tell Max you're working on the moon, tell him you're working on the moon programme to send people and things to the moon. You can keep that tale going for years until he catches on,particularly if you keep pointing at the moon and asking him if he can see the truck you send up there last week :) It does sound like you're busy though. Should we come and add notes to the suggestion box at the farm that you be given an afternoon off?
Well, your story made me laugh out loud. I've no idea who these two characters are, but I would like the visit their restaurant and I like their pragmatic, but unfeeling approach to dealing with their customers' suggestions. I think my favourites were the ones about the music directly contradicting each other, and the last one about more compliments. I'd love to see that happen, but then I'm a big fan of sarcasm anyway :)
The suggestion box
The lobby was glass and steel, with large potted plants dotted here and there across the Venetian marble floor as an acknowledgement that the architect had heard of plant-life. Air-conditioning hummed softly, a white-noise background that faded from consciousness after a few seconds and maintined the lobby temperature at the point where visitors were pleasantly cooled and the reception desk and security staff went home with mild frostbite. Sometimes, in the early morning, you could see a patina of frost on the leaves of the bigger plants. The room was large enough to house an airplane and its support staff, and had two pieces of sculpture -- one by the lifts and the other near the entrance door (and obese people often had to wait for a little electric car to come and shuttle them between the two points), and controlled access to forty-six floors above and seven below.
This was Sixticton's only office block, was most of downtown all by itself, and was owned by Sicticton's most secretive businessperson.
"I've been told," the woman paused to catch her breath. She'd stormed out of the lifts all the way over to the reception desk and the briskness of her walk over that distance was telling. "Told – told, ha, told that you have a suggestion – box."
"Good afternoon Mrs. Brabbant," said Lisa. She smiled and used one hand to casually lift her blonde hair over she shoulder. "Yes, of course we do. I can write anything you'd care to suggest down and put it in there for you."
"Hah! No, I've written it myself and I want to put it in there myself." Mrs. Brabbant pulled a slip of paper out of her coat pocket. The coat was orange and warm and was making Lisa jealous.
"I really think–" Mrs. Brabbant cut her off. "Don't think dear! And buy a coat, your fingers are blue. But don't think! Never think! Just do!"
Lisa smiled again, a little more forced than last time. "Of course," she said. "This way."
They stopped at the nearest sculpture, which proved to be off two naked people either embracing or wrestling. Lisa gestured.
"This is a statue, dear," said Mrs. Brabbant. Lisa gestured again, just below waist-height on the statues. "You can't be serious?"
Lisa sighed. "The architect apparantly misheard it as a 'suggestive box'," she said. They'd made her learn this speech on her first day. "So he put the suggestion box slot where it would have appropriate for, say, a brothel."
"How do they get the slips back out?" Mrs. Brabbant's eyes were wide and a warmer person might have thought that the question was just rhetorical. Lisa took her round the other side of the statue and showed her, her arm disappearing right up to the shoulder. Mrs. Brabbant fainted.
Greg - I dunno, Max might be too smart for that moon business. Or maybe he just doesn't trust me anymore...
Glad you enjoyed mine! I enjoyed re-reading it :)
There are some fantastic details in yours. Lots of them, really. And the description of the suggestion box (both insertion and retrieval) are brilliant. Thank you for the laughs this one gave me :D
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