Isobel Asks The Internet

XXXII - The Oil Rig

We ran into a long lost enemy during a charitable venture! What should we do?

Hey everyone!

So, the other day my friend Mallory (who manages the second-best restaurant in town) invited me, Heini, Katie and Nigella out for a free meal at her workplace. Nigella was busy organising some contractors for the upcoming launch of our salad bar concept and therefore wasn't available so we decided to bring Zelda-Mae along instead!

As we walked into the eating establishment, I noticed that an area of the restaurant was cordoned off, and appeared to contain some kind of freshly destroyed wreckage. This seemed peculiar, but I deduced that it was a newly-established contemporary art installation (Mallory is very into alternative forms of visual expression).

The menu at Mallory's restaurant is very avant-garde, and changes ALL the time because she's quite easily distracted, but I knew that I wanted to order the mackerel and celery lasagne. The rest of the crowd took longer to make up their minds. Mallory got the ham and cheese sandwich, and Heini decided to go for this too with a side of mixed salad vegetables. Katie and Zelda-Mae both ordered the swede mac n' cheese (the pasta is served inside of a swede) and got a root vegetable charc-root-terie board to share. I was satisfied that we had all made inspired choices, to the best of our varying individual abilities.

As we waited for our cuisine to arrive, Mallory told us that there had been a reason for calling us all here for lunch. Instead of verbally elaborating on this point, she passed around some leaflets. Puzzled, I looked at the leaflet and saw that it was about a local charity called the Oilrig Mutual Friendship Group (OMFG), published with the intention of recruiting volunteers to go and visit the workers out on the rigs. Although I knew that my presence would cause the oil rig morale to SKYROCKET, I was confused about how Mallory had discovered this opportunity and asked her as much.

Mallory told us that some woman named Tourmaline had come into the restaurant and approached her directly to talk about the project, because she knew that we were a group of forward-thinking, professional ladies with a passion for philanthropy. I was initially confused as to why Tourmaline hadn't approached me first, but resolved that she must known that I would have been too busy to receive such a mysterious petitioner. Anyway, I reflected on this opportunity while consuming my fibrous lasagne, and decided that I needed some time to carefully consider  our next steps.

The next day, we all gathered at the local helipad destination zone to wait for the helicopter to take us out to a nearby offshore oil rig. On the horizon, I spotted an airborne vehicle approach us from afar, and realised that it was, in fact, not a helicopter but a small plane. Once it had made contact with the ground upon which we stood, a professional-looking businesswoman disembarked; I assumed that this was Tourmaline.

"Hop on board, ladies!" she screamed at us. As we clambered into the passenger lounge, we saw that much of the space was taken up by wooden crates full of bromine and alkalinity balancers. As a successful woman in STEM, I took it upon myself to query her as to why these mysterious items would also be passengers on this trip. Tourmaline explained that, because her role at the Oilrig Mutual Friendship Group was unpaid, she had taken up an incredibly lucrative side-hustle as a freelance chemical supplier to spas and other rest and relaxation-oriented resorts. I thought that this was consistent with Tourmaline's overall demeanour, so I strapped myself in and prepared for take off.

Once we got to the oil rig, I was mildly disgruntled to discover that no audience had been arranged to formally receive us. Instead, the oil rig workers were working. This did not seem like a particularly good omen to me, but I thought it best to press on with the official visit. As we gracefully disembarked the chemical transportation vehicle on to the rig deck, a somewhat dishevelled woman approached us. She introduced herself as Astrid, and welcomed us in her capacity as an executive manager of the oil rig. I introduced myself to her, and informed her that we were here on behalf of myself, the part-time head manager of the most highly regarded supermarket in town.