When Not To Call Your Boss, a Freewrite
"call your boss" my girlfriend sleepily implored me. I'd kept her up with this since 2am. It would soon get light out.
"I AM NOT CALLING MY BOSS!! SHE FIRED THAT LAST PERSON WHO CALLED HER AT DAWN!"
"ok don't call your boss. Go to work. Somebody has to make the bagels."
"I WILL FALL INTO THE STEAM KETTLE AND KILL MYSELF IF I TRY TO MAKE BAGELS IN THIS PAIN!
"so call your boss."
I thought about what my boss would have to do, with no notice at all.
My boss would have to get up immediately, leave her three children with her husband (who did not care for suddenly being left with the children), drive quickly through the still-empty urban streets to the bakery, haul up the front security gates that Hercules would have trouble with, fire up the 50 gallon steam kettle, fire up the massive revolving-stone-shelved oven, pull the racks of bagels out of the walk-in cooler to warm, slide the trays of yeasted breakfast pastries into the proof box to rise, flip on the convection oven, mix up the muffins in the 40 quart mixer bowl, start feeding all these trays of breakfast pastries into the convection oven to bake, then mix up the first batch of bread in the 80 quart mixer bowl. The steam kettle would by then be boiling, and the bagel hot enough for baking bagels.
The counter staff was scheduled to come two hours after she arrived, and begin making the coffees. She would grab her first cup then.
She was a pro at all this, and anyone who had ever seen her do it could see that she loved doing it. She was a goddess in the kitchen.
That sounded good. I called her.
She said "Thank you. Your services will no longer be needed."
This is my entry to @mariannewest's daily freewrite challenge. Today's prompt is call your boss.
I started out writing fiction, then ended up writing an autobiographical account. I often had to do all this with little notice, but the guy who made me do it with no notice, because of a toothache, was terminated.
Thanks for the memories! I got to go back to one of my favorite identities ever!
I guess that boss loves her job enough to do it alone. The only thing she needs is a babysitter.
She (I) had a full time babysitter as well, but the nanny started work when my first kid got picked up from day care. Those were the days back then! I was in top form, felt really good about myself, had a great many people looking to me for direction. My 16 years of power. lol. Now I sit around in obscurity, sometimes writing about it.
I find it hard to imagine I managed a 60-80 hours a week job outside the house as a single mom of 3 too (one a baby). Next to it I had a business of my own at home and always showed up at schools, helped with celebrations and so on. Great in multi tasking, managing, all kind of volunteering and hardly slept.
To be honest I regret all the work although I miss the energy.