Circus

I counted three red blips on the little black box as I hung my keys up. Four messages. The air rushed out of my lungs leaving me feeling deflated as I contemplated the likely messages. One from JoJo. Surely she had received the message I left her yesterday explaining that I needed a doctor's authorization if she planned on returning to work earlier than the first note indicated. I could imagine her tirade about how Patricia the Pachyderm should not have to suffer her absence. That would have been tolerable if Patricia hadn't been so antsy lately, proving JoJo correct.

There would probably be a message from Eric as well. He'd want a full explanation of why I was adding an additional 100lbs of food for the goats. "Was it a typo? No! Well, how much food does one goat need!?" he'd ask rhetorically. The problem wasn't with the goats. It was with the children dropping more on the ground than into the mouths of the goats. Happy customers brought in business. Goat food equated to happiness and that was not something Eric had ever understood about this business. I wondered if his parents had ever let him feed the goats.

Who else? Oh Cyndi "with a y and then an i". The Diva of Darlington, I'd taken to calling her behind closed doors. I couldn't imagine what would be wrong with her working conditions, but something always was. Past requests  flashed through my mind: making the pachyderm dung smell better; ordering less vivid balloons to help with her hangovers; requesting reimbursement if her manicure or pedicure chipped due to the nature of her work; and my all time favorite of imposing fines on animals that were too loud and startled her. At least, after the initial headache, her requests presented some humor.

These three were a three ring circus onto themselves. Sometimes I forgot that I worked for the zoo.

*** Daily Writing Practice ***