Mutual Aid for Magical Creatures

Hi, You're on Live

Lori was late. 

She couldn't find her keys, the subway was delayed, and the midtown tourists crowded the sidewalks as they moved in slow, rambling herds. She checked the time on her phone and sighed in frustration when her screen shone 8:51am. Even her screensaver, a photo of her chihuahua mix affectionately known as "sweet baby angel Ted," didn't calm Lori down. 

Lori couldn't be late for work again this week. She was already late twice, and she couldn't handle another shift "mucking the stalls" as her obnoxious boss Andrew called it. No one wanted to clean bathrooms every hour of their shift, but that punishment was especially cruel at Howdy's, where the special of the day was always Cowboy Chili. 

If Lori fast walked and elbowed through the crowds, she had a slim chance of being on time. She looked ahead of her and charted a path across Times Square. If she got green lights at all three of the crosswalks, she could clock in by nine am. Lori could do this! She sped across the first crosswalk, dodging tourists and a man in a surprisingly smelly Elmo costume. Next, she pushed through a group of elderly women all wearing the same red hats then jumped into the second crosswalk and ran across it. Howdy's was one block away. Lori spun around a man handing out flyers for a comedy club. She leapfrogged over a pile of trash. She shimmied in between a wax statue of Elvis and the wall, then launched herself on the third crosswalk. Sweat poured down her face but Lori didn't care. She was almost there!  

Howdy's was three storefronts away. Lori was full out running faster than she ever had before. Her brain only had one thought on loop: I'm not cleaning up diarrhea today, I'm not cleaning up diarrhea today, I'm not cleaning up diarrhea today. She was in the last 10 yards, all she had to do was run past the Hard Rock Cafe. Instead, she ran directly into the blunt end of a selfie stick.

"OMG, did you all see that?!"

A tiny woman with four inch pink platform shoes and nails to match clutched her selfie stick and pulled the phone close to her face. 

"I hope my stalker isn't back," she hissed into the camera, then winked. Turning to a disoriented Lori, the selfie-stick woman said, "Hi, you're on live with Anna Big Apple and my 623 fans! Do you have anything you want to say to my viewers?"

Lori clutched her hand over her right eye, where an iphone-shaped welt was quickly forming.

 "Why did you hit me in the face?" she asked, into the camera. 

"LOL, girl! You ran into me! I was just telling my viewers about last night's vampire sighting at the Hard Rock Cafe, and you bonked your head right on my selfie stick!" 

"Vampire sighting?"

"OMG you don't know about the vampire? Last night, TikTok star Jenna B., no full last name obvi, went to the Hard Rock Cafe to do a review of everything paleo on the menu. When she was filming her review outside of the restaurant, she caught live footage of a vampire drinking someone's blood right in this alley!" Anna Big Apple swung the selfie stick towards Lori so they were both in the video. "Do you think that human blood is paleo?" she asked. 

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Lori said. "But I do know that you made me late for work. I need to leave right now." 

"Ok, good luck with that welt! And if you need some help covering up that bruise, check out my video on concealer tricks and tips!" 

Lori flipped off Anna Big Apple, sending both middle fingers to the sky, without breaking her stride. There was no way that she wasn't late to work. All she could hope for was that Andrew already assigned bathroom duty to some other late person. She pulled open the front doors and slapped her employee key card on the check in scanner. 

The employee check in screen read 9:07am. 

"HOWDY LORI! It's mighty fine of you to grace us with your presence today." 

Lori looked up at the pale man with the patchy beard. He wore a plaid shirt tucked into blue jeans and fiddled with the walkie-talkie on his belt. Next to him was the perpetually damp mop and an old bucket.

"Hi Andrew," Lori sighed. "You know you don't have to do the voice when customers aren't around, right?"

"I reckon the commitment to the voice is what made me the manager and you," Andrew paused for his own dramatic effect while he handed off the mop and bucket, "on bathroom duty."

"I reckon the commitment to that voice is why you can't get a second date," Lori muttered. 

"What was that, cowgirl?" 

"Nothing," Lori mumbled. 

"That's right!" Andrew said. "Now giddy up and start mucking those stalls before the tour buses start rollin' in."

Lori hated being late.