"What do you mean there is no #14?"
"There's no #14, it goes from #13 to #15!"
Earl tried to wipe his brow with his dirty left arm since his right was occupied holding a clamp, but all he succeeded in doing was smearing dirt across his face. First, this morning his water heater decided to die and he was stuck with a cold shower, then, instead of getting a breakfast sandwich, the drive-through gave him a breakfast burrito. Now - this.
"What are you going to do?" asked Peggy, while waving the check-off list for emphasis to no-one in particular.
"OK, OK, do you think that they accidentally omitted step #14 from the list, or do you think that its a typo and the list is just misnumbered?" asked Earl, knowing full-well what Peggy's response would be, placed his frustration on stand-by.
Peggy looked down at the list and re-read step #13, then #15, then scanned the remaining steps to see if the numbered sequence had any other abnormalities. It didn't, as the list ran consecutively from #15 to #28.
"I don't know, I can't tell," she replied to Earls' great annoyance and complete lack of surprise.
"But the rest of the list looks good!" she added with the type of positivism that motivates gravediggers to whistle while they work.
"Swell - now if they could get past #14, they'd be in-like-Flynn... what to do, what to do, what to do?" thought Earl.
"Hey! Look at the spacing between #13 and #15 and tell me if its the same as the spacing between all the other steps," shouted Earl with renewed inspiration. "C'mon baby... smoking gun, smoking gun," he whispered to himself.
"Why?" replied Peggy.
"Because if the spacing is the same, then maybe they didn't omit a step, maybe they just misnumbered it and we should move on to #15," shouted Earl, who was becoming lightheaded as a result of the decreasing oxygen level.
"Hey good one," thought Peggy, and she quickly evaluated the spacing between each of the typed steps. It all looked the same, all double spaced.
"It's the same," she yelled back.
"Well shit," thought Earl. "Gotta think, what would logically come after #13, what would be the logical progression in this process?" said Earl to himself. He was really sweating now and his right hand was starting to cramp. They were coming to the proverbial "crap or get off the pot moment."
"OK, what is step #15?"
"Clip the red wire and release the clamp," replied Peggy. "Are you gonna start #15?"
"Outta options and outta time," thought Earl. "OK then, clip the wire and release the clamp," he said to himself.
But as he positioned his wire cutter, he smiled, "man, that burrito turned out to be pretty damn good."
"Hey, Earl, what model is this... is it an XF-1300... because this checklist is for an XF-1300," called out Peggy.
"Earl... hey Earl... hello?"
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Word Diet - short stories with less calories
Ficción GeneralThis is a collection of quirky, tragic, serious, intimate, scary, and humorous flashfic all written with the goal of less-is-more! So take five minutes, relax and read a story, because the dishes can wait, the lawn isn't going anywhere, and if you...
