The Story, Part V

For the start of the story and links to other installments, see this post.

Phil had forgotten to ask Mr. Gabriel where the Frozen Foods department was, but he found it easily. He just headed down the coolest hallway. The room itself was bitterly cold and dry. Fred was already there, pacing to keep the shivers at bay. He greeted Phil, who said, “I was really sorry to hear about Dave.”

“Yeah,” said Fred. “That piano thing…you’d think he’d have gone out another way, you know?”

They were silent for a few minutes, then Phil said, “I know that I shouldn’t be asking you this, but I just don’t understand. I found only 10 pairs of socks. How come everyone keeps saying I did a good job?”

“Ten!” said Fred. “Wow! That is good! Dave told me you’d found a bunch, but I thought maybe he was just exaggerating because you two were pals or something.”

“But I still don’t understand. My job was to find pairs, but I averaged fewer than one a day.”

“Hah! It’s a hopeless task. Frozen Foods is a lot easier, and more interesting, too. You won’t believe some of the stuff that people freeze!” said Fred as he put on his giant, fleece-lined gloves. “The first thing you need to remember about this job is to always wear your gloves.”

Phil pulled on a pair of puffy gloves. He felt like an Eskimo preparing to face a polar bear in the ring. “If it’s a hopeless task, then why do they hire people to do it?”

A large item dropped from the chute, grazing Phil’s ear. “Ow! What the heck was that?”

It was a twenty-pound turkey.

“The second thing you need to remember about this job is to always watch your head.” Fred carefully hefted the turkey and dumped it into the bin labeled GOBBLE. “Don’t worry about it, Phil. You’ll catch on eventually.”

It didn’t take Phil long to learn the ins and outs of Frozen Foods. It was the strangest job, similar to Socks, only colder. The frozen items in the central bin had to be sorted into the smaller bins. The majority of items went into one of two bins: the one marked UFO, for Unidentified Frozen Objects, and the one marked HFO, short for Hell Frozen Over, in which went the lumps of food that were irredeemably freezer-burned.

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