Day 10: Back at It

 

I finally felt up for writing again today. Sam's posts have really inspired me! I was also inspired by a torrential downpour that Dad and I got caught in when we were returning from the mall last week. It got me thinking about how things like that bring people together in funny ways. 

She looked up and saw that it was a sudden downpour that she hadn’t seen coming. It was like a wall of rain; you couldn’t tell where one raindrop ended and another began. Outside, beyond the wall of rain at the windows, she could tell that pandemonium had erupted just outside their doors. So many blurry figures were running around in a panic.

“We have to open the doors early so people can come inside!” Cara yelled, probably with more gusto than the situation demanded but as a professional cheesemonger she just wasn’t used to anything being urgent.

“But I haven’t finished stocking the buffalo mozzarella!” Gordon whined loudly.

“Not everyone walks around in a cape all the time, Gordon!” she replied peevishly as she rushed to throw open the doors. “These people are already soaked!”

Immediately, a number of incredibly drenched but grateful-looking people filed in through the big red doors. 

“Stay as long as you need,” Cara shouted over the rain as gently as she could, turning around to grab a stack of red cloth napkins to pass around to their new customers. 

The thing about a situation like this one—where something sudden, unexpected, and dramatic happens, like a torrential downpour—is that it causes a lot of people to do something they wouldn’t normally do, with people that they normally would not do anything with. The weather has a way of throwing people together, for better or for worse.

Cara welcomed the chaos. Things didn’t usually pick up at This Ain’t the Stilton for much of the day, if that. It could be boring. Maybe these people weren’t on the market for a plant-based cheese. Maybe they were, but didn’t know it yet. Or maybe they would just help her to pass the time. Who could say?

Gordon, however, was wearing his displeasure all over his face. He only got more unhappy as a woman wearing a garish green button proclaiming that “construction is unethical” elbowed her way towards him.

“EXCUSE ME OVER THERE,” she demanded loudly, in a way that was completely unnecessary. “Do you have any Babybel?” 

Gordon looked like he had just sniffed a particularly pungent postmodern cheese. He was searching for words, but couldn’t find them.

“We don’t, we only sell plant-based cheeses,” Cara replied helpfully. “Why don’t you try a sample of the buffalo mozzarella that Gordon is setting up over there?”

Gordon sighed dramatically, in a way that was also completely unnecessary, and handed her a small piece of the cheese.

The woman sputtered, nearly toppling over into a strangely placed stack of chairs and foldable tables. The air in the room was sucked out as everyone watched to see if she would take a Big Fall. Luckily, she managed to regain her faculties and stayed upright.

“Is this a spicy cheese? It has way too much kick to it!” the woman coughed.

Cara was at a loss for words. It was the mildest cheese in the store. It had no spice whatsoever. She had assumed it would be the right speed for Ms. Babybel. 

How wrong she had been.