Ty, a shift manager with an alcoholic wife, creates a female replicant in a dystopia veering toward full mechanization. For Ty, the surreal drudgery of working in a retail environment is interrupted when robotic interfaces are installed at his job...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
An end-cap display had collapsed. The backing of the structure had ripped away, and table covers were spread on the floor, creating a cushion for the metal pegs.
Martine turned to Wallace. "You set this up. How'd it happen?"
Wallace looked as confused as everyone else. "Not sure."
"Well," Ty examined the torn end cap, turning over the bent pegs in his hands, "your problem is that you used regular pegs."
At the information, Martine laughed and Pen shook his head. Poor Wallace had sweat beading his upper lip as he defended his use of inferior retail hardware. His next words would prove to dig him in a deeper hole.
"I didn't just use regular pegs...I used two-part pegs too!"
"Two-part pegs," Ty repeated, not quite believing his colleague.
Two-part pegs were aptly named, as they had a removable backing, or cheater, and a peg fit into the cheater once it was affixed to the pegboard. It was common knowledge that a two-part peg could only hold a pound or less of merchandise. The thirty or so table covers Wallace had placed on each peg weighed at least five pounds in combination.
This time, both Martine and Pen laughed. Ty found it hard to fight the urge himself, but he thought one amongst the management team ought to keep their cool.
"The end cap came down because the weight distribution was all off. Heavy duty pegs were the way to go, not regular," Ty paused, "or two-part pegs."
"Oh Wallace!" Martine was still laughing. "Tell them about what happened earlier today!"
Before he could share his story, Pen clapped his hands. "Let's socialize later. Right now, we have to clear the floor of this gosh-darn mess."
When Pen clapped, he meant business. Everyone scrambled to pick up the what they could reach. While they worked, Wallace nudged Ty.
"Sorry, man." He gestured to the table covers littering the floor.
Ty shook his head. Wallace had made a mess, a preventable mess, but he had been quick to offer an apology and accept responsibility for his mistake.
A begrudging smile took the place of Ty's frown. "Oh Wallace." He mimicked Martine's disparaging tone.
Wallace chuckled. Finally, finally, Ty chuckled too.
OhWallace would become an infamous phrase, to be passed around the office in the aftermath of Wallace's other preventable (and equally comical) acts.
And they used the phrase daily.
For instance:
Wallace left pegs on top of a ladder, forgot about them, closed the ladder, and they fell on his head.
"Oh Wallace!"
Or
The cardboard dumpster was full, and Wallace jumped inside of it to bring down the height of the boxes. He forgot his keys and phone were in his pocket, and when they fell, it took him an hour to fish them out.
"Oh Wallace!"
Despite Wallace's frequent lapse in memory, Ty sought his friendship. Wallace had a high approval rating among the employees of Good Time, an accomplishment Ty envied. Of course, half of his popularity was due to Martine's spread of Oh Wallace stories, but the other half was based on his congeniality.
Most of Ty and Wallace's hangout sessions consisted ofdebating about anything and everything. They discovered shared interests in movies, music, comic books, and video games.
Ty's growing friendship made him blind to Jennifer's latest muck-ups. She was sleeping in again, but she woke up cheery and ready for the day. A couple of times a week, she would sleep during Helia's nap, and fail to wake up. When Ty woke up to a cold bed at 4 a.m. on a Thursday morning, he understood.
These were not the acts of a sober person.
~*~
A/N: Dedicated to a WP bestie, and I'll just keep dedicating things to her...Wordsworth84
She is always writing a new story, and her horror game is on point! Check out Rising From Shadows, a collection of shorts.
