From a Busy Mind

The Exchange #1

Hillary Adams was not having a good day. No, not a good day at all. But well, she had already anticipated that hadn't she? The moment that she saw the time when she woke up, finding that she had slept in and would be late for work unless she missed her morning coffee, she knew that it was going to be a not-good day. Drinking coffee in the morning was one of the rituals that Hillary did religiously every day, well almost. She took a glass of milk, (did not like adding water like her mother did) and adding exactly two teaspoons of sugar, one of coffee and one of drinking chocolate powder, she put it in the blender along with four ice cubes, and made the most amazing coffee, just the way she liked it. Unfortunately, that day was not one of those days that she could enjoy this sweet decadent pleasure of hers, simply due to an errant alarm clock. She hurried through getting ready, turning on an upbeat song to fasten her tempo. She danced her way through the shower, dressing up and grabbing a quick toast in her mouth as she switched off the music and snatching her car keys from the stand ran out the door; only to return a moment later to wear her heels, bouncing with urgency.

Then she found that in all her urgency, she had left her keys when wearing the heels. Not wanting to go home again, she took the subway to her office, standing right beside the door, tapping on the pole onto which she held, impatiently, drawing the annoyed attention of her co-passengers. Giving them an apologetic smile, which came out as more of a grimace than a smile, Hillary disembarked at her stop and ran up the escalators with lots of 'Excuse me', 'Sorry', and 'Pardon me's. Entering her workplace's shiny glass and steel building, she rushed towards the elevator, only to brush against someone leading to losing her balance and falling down, breaking the heel of her right footwear. She stood up, took off the offending accoutrement and holding them in her hand, and finally got into the waiting elevator to go to the required floor. Her series of unfortunate events was still not complete as was evident when, finally sitting on her desk whose tag labeled her as the manager's assistant, she knocked over a glass of water over some very important documents which had arrived that very morning. It was at that very moment when she heard her boss entered and seeing the mess on her desk, spoke, "Hillary." Well, roared actually.

"Sir?" she responded meekly, cowering under his glare, wishing that the floor would open up and swallow her. Wait! That would land her in the marketing floor. She didn't want to be there either.

"What in the world is wrong with you? This is the second time this month that you've destroyed some very important documents due to your clumsiness! What will I tell the press this afternoon? 'Sorry I cannot make a statement right now, because my good-for-nothing secretary spilled water on the goddamn sole copy that I had received from the factory in Arizona?' I assumed better from you. Guess I was wrong. Take the day off. No, take the week off, and don't show up before working out whatever's keeping you in this mess."

Hillary couldn't believe this. She wanted to do one of two things, cry, or tell the man that it was his mistake that he hadn't asked for more copies, if the documents were so important. And who the hell had asked the senders to use washable ink anyways?

Seeing her blank face, her manager snapped his fingers in front of her eyes. "What are you waiting for? Go. Home."

This time, Hillary simply scrambled out from behind her desk and throwing an apologetic glance at her boss, who was normally more considerate, well sending her home was better than firing her anyways so she could say that he still had been considerate, if a bit too loud than necessary. But that was her opinion, didn't know what the others thought, well she did, everyone said that the manager held a soft spot for her and was biased towards her, the only reason for her hiring must have been her polite way of speaking to others (useful for greeting important people) and her innocent smile, which brightened anyone's day. Hillary couldn't understand why they said so, but then again, she didn't understand much of what happened around her anyways, head-in-the-clouds-Hillary they called her, HitcH for short. Though she sometimes wondered why they called her that, a word which meant hindrance. Anyways, she shook all these thoughts off and walking with her heels in her hands, called for a taxi, a rarity but a necessity for that particular situation.