I’ve been venting to friends that January was only yesterday, but I’ve lived five whole lives since.
I’m the kind of tired that sleep won’t cure…
Today I step into my office and I bump into Trudi.
New readers to the blog haven’t heard me mention her in a while.
Trudi is my Office Goose in Charge of Marketing. She’s been wearing the outfit a friend sent me as a gag gift last year. It’s a chef suit. The gag was that since I can’t cook, my concrete lawn ornament had a better shot at handling Thanksgiving dinner than I did.
I examine my goose on her little wooden scooter. She’s got a little dust on her spatula. “Sorry, Trudi.” I’ve not given her anything to market for a hot minute.
Like five lifetimes’ worth of minutes.
Trudi gives me a stone-cold glare, and I swear her beak moved. “Get with it. And I’m sick of being a chef and holding this spatula. It’s been ten months.”
I get a little aggravated, because last I checked, I employ her, currency being a vast and varied wardrobe.
The feline trio enters, interrupting my thoughts on what to do with Trudi.
Amara Mino is the CEO. Boss lady extreme who believes I can’t do anything right. She glares at me from the top of the plush pink cat tree and threatens to put a well-placed hairball on my laptop if my fingers don’t start flying over the keys and if Tuna Time is late for no good reason—or any reason—anytime soon.
Malachi Maxwell is Head of Emotional Support. He can’t even anymore with me. He can’t get a read on my emotional state. All he knows is I make his whiskers twitch. And Tuna Time is Late. And Mother feels better when Mother writes, so why isn’t Mother writing?
Stella Marie is Guilt Trip Coordinator, and with her busy schedule supervising the care and keeping of the Hairless Kitten, she’s overlooked Mother’s piles of undone projects for way too long. With one swoop of her tail, a precariously stacked pile of manuscripts flutters across the floor. And, by the way, Tuna Time is late.
Insufferable office staff, the lot of them.
Then there’s Little Miss Muse…
She’s the tyrannical creative force residing between my imagination and my one last brain cell. With no respect for catastrophes or the multiple bouts of writer’s block they cause, she claims every injury, illness, griefy trauma, act of the Universe, and existential crisis is simply procrastination in disguise.
She begrudges me the tiniest bit of peace as I stare blankly at the wall.
Which I’m trying to do now.
It’s a nice wall. Sturdy. Stable. Depdendable. Unlike my fickle staff.
“You work for me, you know,” I moan.
“I do?” Aghast, she chokes on her grape soda. She looks at the bottle, swirls it around like a fine wine, pointing it at me as she straightens her wings and her tutu. “You’ve even been lax on the bribes of late.” She kicks her trunk and it slides across the hardwood to my feet. I open it. She’s down to two vials of lavender glitter, one bottle rocket, and a half-filled Zippo lighter.
And zero grape bubble gum.
I cringe.
“If you would simply put your butt in the chair, ANY CHAIR, we could ALLLLL get back to work.”
I prepare to rattle off the aforementioned crises, calamities, and catastrophes, and tell her she’s insufferable, but… as I gape at my once-ready-to-write-in-office and see no writing has been done?
Uggg.
I hate it when the menace is right.
They’re all right.
Tuna Time has been late for no good reason. The only acceptable time crunch is an elevated word count.
Trudi has been stuck in a chef costume for months with no marketing at all to honk at.
And Little Miss?
I’m surprised she hasn’t burned the house down in sheer boredom.
Five sets of eyeballs stare at me, waiting for the realization to totally sink in.
I’m theirs.
They’re in charge.
And I, in fact, am the most insufferable employee.
“K, guys. Where do you want me to start?”
Little Miss Muse downs the rest of her soda, fires off that last rocket straight into the pink plush cat tree, sending Amara tumbling onto the keyboard, which opens the manuscript file that Stella knocked over earlier, which sends Malachi into my lap for purrs and cuddles, and Trudi drops her spatula and picks up her clipboard.
Time to get to work…
I’ve got 45 minutes until Tuna Time.
