Page 50 of Error Handling
Christopher sends a sad emoji.That stinks.
Yep. Good times.
You don’t know good times until you’ve been to an HR convention.
The door opens with a jingle of bells. Three older ladies walk in, all wearing fanny packs. Tourists.
Some customers just walked in, I text.
Christopher texts me the thumbs-up emoji.
I set my phone on my desk and welcome them. They want to book a Saturday evening tour. Most of the slots are already filled, but I squeeze them into the six o’clock, overbooking by one, but Cassie won’t mind. I show them the mobile app and talk them through finding their confirmation.
As they head out, Cassie walks in and introduces herself. She asks their names, where they are from, how long they arestaying. This commences a fifteen-minute conversation, during which I check the review sites for new positive reviews to use in ad copy.
After the women leave, Cassie’s posture goes from confident to defeated.
“What a morning,” she says. She walks over to her desk and tosses her purse in the bottom drawer.
“I overbooked Saturday’s six o’clock tour,” I say.
“That’s fine.” Cassie sighs.
“Did you get the tire fixed?”
“Not yet. I’m driving on the spare. I must have rolled over a nail at Luke’s house. The construction guys aren’t very careful about where they drop those things.”
“Is he ever going to finish that house?”
Cassie groans.
Cassie’s boyfriend, Luke, has been restoring his haunted mansion on Benton. He’s run into countless snags and gone through three different construction companies, due to their lack of competence and their fear of ghosts. Luke’s house is legitimately haunted, which Cassie loves.
“I need more coffee,” Cassie says as she passes my desk on her way to the breakroom.
I hear the Keurig warm up and pour a single cup of Cassie’s favorite hazelnut coffee. The coffee’s scent precedes Cassie into the main office.
Instead of returning to her desk, Cassie rolls a chair out of a conference room and positions it in front of my desk. She sets down her cup and plops into the chair.
“Tell me how it went,” Cassie says.
“How what went?” I say, feigning innocence.
“Don’t mess with me, I’ve had a crappy morning.”
“Oh. Sorry. You mean the date with Christopher.” Because there was also last evening’s weird non-ish date with Chris, I’m not sure I’m ready to tell Cassie about that.
“Yes,” Cassie says. “The date. Tell me about it.”
“He kissed me on the lips.”
Cassie’s jaw nearly thuds onto the floor.
I shrug.
“Back up. Back up. What led to this kiss?”
“We had a nice time chatting and laughing at Joe and Go by the mall, then my car died, and he called up a tow truck, then he drove me home, and I had water gushing out of my house, so he crawled under the house and turned off the gas.”