Day 15: 27,011 Words

After day 15, another long and probably pointless writing session is in the books.  I had a little more fun today, hopefully you'll all enjoy this!

Her sanctimonious rage was suddenly interrupted by Mick, who was deviating from the plan that she had made for him (in her mind, of course) that he strive to be seen and not heard.  He seemed to have disregarded his Penny Lane’s Bakery uniform in favour of a truly inexplicable outfit.  He had previously been wearing a shirt that he had made for himself that read “The Trash Palace—Come for the Kicks, Stay for the Micks!,” but he was now wearing no shirt at all.  That isn’t entirely true, since he had put on some kind of vest that seemed to be made of kneepads that had been sewn together.  Instead of his DILF brand jeans that had previously cupped his bottom in a most pleasing manner, he was wearing black sweat pants that he had tucked into his long black socks, and oddly enough, he had saved a pair of kneepads from the vest and had put them on his knees.  The ensemble was topped off with a black baseball cap that sat at a jaunty angle on his head. 

If the outfit was inexplicable, his actions had crossed the line into the truly bizarre. 

Rather than mixing up the batter to make five dozen vanilla chocolate swirl cupcakes, he appeared to be hip thrusting towards the floor.  Sexy music was suddenly blaring, and he was touching his chest in a way that even Ellie had to admit was seductive.  It was clear that he was looking good, but what was less clear was why.

“I don’t want to be overly critical,” Ellie began gently, “but what are you doing?”

Mick seemed startled, as if he had thought that he was alone.  This was strange, since he had been talking to her only moments ago.  When had he changed his clothes?  When had he begun his sexy dance?  Her heart sank as she realized that it had probably been during her extensive inner monologue about hockey violence.

Ellie guessed that Mick took the highly original and thoughtful phrase “dance like no one’s watching” too literally.  He hustled over to an iPod player that was tucked into the corner among the flavouring and colouring gels and turned off the music. 

“I was just,” he sounded embarrassed, “expressing myself.”

“I understand,” Ellie lied.  She had never had the urge to cover her body with shoulder pads and thrust into the floor, but to each their own?  She wondered how either of those things could be considered ‘expressing himself,’ but she reminded herself that he was expressing himself, not expressing her.

“I just—I don’t feel like my job is very creative,” he said sadly.

“You don’t think that icing hundreds of cupcakes the same way is a proper outlet for your creativity?” Ellie asked, knowing what the answer should be but talking anyway. 

“Oh no, that’s plenty creative.  I make each one a little different,” he said, smiling to himself.

“Yeah, you’re really not supposed to do that,” Ellie responded.

“Oh.  Well, that wasn’t what I was talking about anyway.  It’s my other job, where I design furniture.  It feels like every jerk who ever decided he is artistic and sensitive and has taken one shop class thinks that he can be a furniture designer.”

“I know what you mean.  Am I supposed to be impressed by this?”

“They want you to be, that’s for sure.  I’m so tired of being one of them.”

“Well do you have to be?”

“Icing cupcakes at a bakery doesn’t exactly pay the rent, Penny Lane.  No offense.”

“Does your landlord not accept the stale cupcakes that I let you take home?”

“No.”

“Their loss.”

“Not really.”

They both stood silently for a moment, unsure of how to proceed. 

“Well, I think that I’m going to get dressed,” Mick said as he gathered up his shoulder pads.

“I think that’s for the best,” Ellie said, doing her best impression of what an appropriate boss would say.  If she had the choice she would want Mick to never get dressed again, but saying such a thing would hardly be conducive to an un-hostile workplace environment.

Ellie was alone for only a moment when once again, Gordon and Carson (hopefully) burst into the room unannounced.  They were followed by a camera crew who seemed to be looking on with delight.

“I told you to stay away from me!” Carson shouted at Gordon, who seemed a little too pleased with himself.

“And I told you to stay away from Penny Lane!” he hollered back as he straightened his cape and fake vampire teeth.

“That was you who left me the note made out of newspaper clippings that told me to ‘Leave Penny Lane alone or else’?  I thought that it that it was the crazed Beatles aficionado who calls himself Maxwell Silver Hammer,” he said.

“Penny Lane considers me to be something of a father figure,” Gordon said.

“That is completely untrue,” Ellie interjected.  She looked at the camera, “and I would like the record to show that this vampyre is not a father figure to me in any way.”

“Teenagers,” Gordon lamented.

“I’m not a teenager!  And stay out of my room!” Ellie suddenly yelled, not sure what had come over her.  She shook her head, confused.  “What did Gordon do this time?”

“I just caught him doing donuts on the lawn of the park.  I think that he thought that it was my lawn, since he probably failed to notice the public park sign.”

Gordon’s face turned bright red, indicating that Carson’s assertion was probably accurate.

“He tried to peel away before I noticed him with his finger in the air, but I saw his car and it was very clearly him.  Who else drives a hearse with a ‘Fangs4Lyfe’ vanity plate?”

“Plenty of people,” Gordon said defensively.  Everyone opted to ignore him.

“Why were you doing donuts on what you believed to be Carson’s lawn to make sure that he stays away from me?  No part of that makes sense,” Ellie exclaimed.

“I overheard you two planning to kill yourselves like Romeo and Juliet, and then I saw the way that this troublemaker was looking at you when you picked up your award for ‘guac most likely to get you drunk’ at the Guac Off!” Gordon said.  “I have eyes and ears everywhere, like a bat!”

Bats don’t actually have very good vision, Ellie thought to herself, which is why they use echo location to such great effect.  She decided that this was not the moment to bring this up.

If Ellie hadn’t been quite so confused and outraged, she might have enjoyed looking around the room to take in the faces that surrounded her.  Each was similar to what she imagined a person would look like if a chipmunk farted in their face, but like snowflakes, each one was slightly different.

“Do you ever make sense?” Carson roared at Gordon, causing him to shrink back into one of his camera people. 

“I’m far too liminal to be translatable from your mediocre frame of—”

“Please stop talking,” Ellie interrupted what was likely to be a very douchey ending to that sentence.