A Google in Time Saves Nine

Whenever she came through the drive-thru, whoever was at the first window would sing through the speakers, “Will, your monkey girl’s here!” and then everybody wired in would howl, whistle, and generally make themselves completely obnoxious while I would try to act cool and indifferent that the current object of my obsession was heading toward my window.
“Big surprise,” I’d mutter into my headset. “It’s nearly closing time. She always comes through before we shut down.” Then, I’d focus on quick-bagging the few orders that had come in before hers.
“Keeping track, aren’t ya, Tarzan?” they’d say then.
Or it might be George of the Jungle, Curious George, or even Speedracer after that movie came out. Once, one of the old guys called me Jane something, and when nobody laughed, he changed it to Cornelius. That guy was creepy. He used to volunteer to clean out the Playplace tubes – finally, the manager let him go. It didn’t stop the monkey jokes, but they weren’t such a big deal anyway.
Except for the banana ones. They made me mad. I almost got fired for shoving Lonnie one night for shooting his mouth off about whether or not I’d given a banana to the monkey girl. He didn’t really fall into the fryer like he tried to claim. His arm got a little scorched from the heat, but it didn’t even blister. Not much anyway. And at least the manager put an end to the banana comments. And the ones about monkeys jumping on the bed. With those out of the way, then like I said, the others weren’t much of a problem anyway.
Especially not when she got to my window to pay for her order, always a grilled chicken wrap – no sauce, no tomatoes – and a diet lemonade. She always paid with a five dollar bill, and I always had her change ready before hand. I knew that she liked a lot of napkins and not a lot of ice. And I always made sure that she had her spoon and an extra mint at the bottom of her bag. I tried not to make a big deal about it, but I know that she noticed I was giving her a little extra attention. At least, I guessed that she did. She kept coming back, didn’t she? And she always smiled so prettily at me and I liked to think that the hand contact we made when we exchanged money was made a little longer than necessary on her side of the deal.
But after she pulled away with her order, I was back at everyone’s mercy until we got too busy with closing duties to say much of anything.
Up until then, though, they always piled joke after joke on me.
“Will, wave bye-bye at the little monkeys!” someone would always yell. I’d snort in disgust, but I’d always try to sneak a quick glance out across the front counter through the side windows to see her Volvo pull away. The whole back window was filled with sock monkeys of every size and color.
“Did you see her plates, Will?” people would laugh and start chanting, “MUNKY4U! MUNKY4U!” I’d just turn down the volume on my headset as low as I dared and just focus on getting the final orders out of my window. A lot of people personalize their plates, so I didn’t see the big deal. I do wish I had some police friends, though. I’m not a stalker, but you can’t really find anything out from googling a license plate number.
“As far as you leaned out there to give her that order, I’m surprised you didn’t get your headset caught on all that crap hanging from her mirror. How many monkey keychains does she have anyway?” someone asked once.
“How should I know? Do you think I counted them?” I’d grumble. But I knew she had nine counting the ones on the mirror and the one on her key in the ignition, but not counting another I’d spotted one night poking out of her open purse.
“Bet you liked her shirt, didn’t ya, Will?” or “What monkey stuff she have on tonight, Will?” were part of the usual routine after she left. I never answered them, just shrugged and kept working. They were right though. She always had on something with a monkey print or sock monkey pattern – dress, t-shirt, halter top, whatever. One hot night last week, she even had on a swimsuit with sweet little monkey faces on her… anyway, that night was the one I shoved Lonnie for saying stuff about the girl and my banana. That night was a bad one.
Thankfully, I knew that when the monkey songs started it was almost over. “Brass Monkey” – “Shake that Monkey” – “Hey Hey We’re the Monkees” – I thank God that there aren’t too many monkey songs out there, at least not many that the crew I work with know about.
So after the jokes, the songs, then we’d get so busy closing up and shutting down and chasing off the last customers, that they’d all forget about it.
Until the next night.
Then it would happen all over again.
But…
tonight…
…was different.
She’d pressed the five into my hand a little harder than normal. She’d held eye contact a little longer than normal. She’d smiled a little brighter and a little wider than normal.
I didn’t figure it out until I counted my register at the very end of the night.
Then, there it was. Right there in front of my face. I couldn’t believe I’d missed it, and I was so glad that nobody after her paid with a big bill. I was so glad that I was going home then, because I don’t think I could’ve waited once I saw it.
Of course, I had to borrow a five from my boss, which meant agreeing to work doubles next weekend, but it was worth it to get that five from the till.
I know I could’ve just entered it into my phone or written it down on a napkin or even on my hand like I’d seen some of the guys and girls I worked with do.
But I had to have it. The actual five dollar bill that she’d handed me and that she’d written on in her own handwriting before she’d even gotten to my window.
The five dollar bill that said on its margins on both sides: Hi Will!! AIM!! --> munkygirl99 <-- Let’s chat!!
And best of all, in my opinion, she’d drawn all the exclamation points to look like bananas.

Just Sign on the Dotted Google

Ham Shapiro had worked at Jackson Lampmakers Ltd. for a little over thirty-five years. In that time, he’d done lots of jobs, from starting out sweeping the assembly rooms to being one of the top assemblers in the factory. According to the chalkboard by the time clock, he currently held two records that the other line workers hadn’t beaten: The Most Consecutive Days Without Illness or Accident (312) and the ‘Catch-All’ Clear Line Award (62.4 inches).

The ‘Catch-All’ Award had to do with his working the very tail end of the Floor Lamp Base line. Only the best workers could be put in the last spot of any line. It’s what the foremen call the ‘Catch-All’ position. His job was to put the final twists and turns on all the bolts and screws that the workers in front of him had laid into place. If any were missing or crooked, he had to correct them, and at the same time, he had to lay the brass top plate on each lamp base in its exact position and set its fasteners. Only then could he slide the finished base to his right to switch it over to the next line. A lot of clear line between the Catch-All and the first worker of the next line meant that the Catch-All was fast and accurate. A fast Catch-All meant his line could move faster, and a faster line meant more units could be manufactured. The factory bosses gave the Catch-All’s incentives to move more efficiently – the key to the foremen’s lavatory and free meals in the canteen, not to mention the higher pay for more units produced. The line with the fastest Catch-All got daily bonuses also, so that motivated the workers to make few mistakes and to work faster themselves.

With over two yards of clear line to his right and nearly a year of perfect attendance, Ham Shapiro couldn’t be touched by anyone trying to beat his records. He was so good that there was even talk going around in the canteen about his name being moved from the chalkboard to a metal plaque. He was the factory’s golden child, people said. The foremen loved his speed and consistency, the workers on his line loved their bonuses, and the bosses loved the figures on their production sheets.

Add to those things these three facts that everyone at Jackson Lamplighters Ltd. knew about Ham: he never lost his temper, he never laughed at off-color jokes, and he always smoked a quarter of a cigar in the canteen at the close of each day’s shift. People also gossiped that he had studied with Prussian scientists at a university in his home country. Others reported that as a youth he had sworn secret oaths to the Kaiser and then fled to America just before the War ended. One or two Catch-All’s from other lines even whispered that he had a portrait of Kaiser Wilhelm II in his apartment. But no one really believed those tales. They were too unlikely.

What people did believe were his work records and those three facts. Everything else people said about him was idle rumor. Ham always went straight home after his cigar, and always alone. He never invited anyone, and the few curious enough to invite themselves were always kindly turned away. Nosy people could never get him to say anything about his personal life either. If pushed, he would reluctantly talk about only two subjects – work or temple. Nothing more, nothing less.

So people thought that’s all there was to Ham Shapiro – just the factory and the scriptures. Even his landlady believed that was all there was to the quiet, middle-aged assembly line worker who rented the basement of her boarding house.

When he didn’t come to the factory on what would have been the 313th day, the foremen knew something had to be terribly wrong. When they telephoned his boarding house and heard that he wasn’t answering the landlady’s knock and had bolted his door, they feared the worst.

When men from the factory came to the boarding house to help break down the door on what would have been the 314th unmissed work day, they expected to find Ham Shapiro dead.

When the men discovered an empty apartment filled with a homemade forge and crates of metal tools and parts stolen from the factory over the past thirty-five years, they all scratched their heads and wondered why Ham needed all that metal.

When they learned that police had found strange chemicals and foreign schematics among the stolen goods and that federal agents had come in to investigate, they all remembered the rumors about Ham having sworn secret oaths to the Kaiser before the War.

When they read in the papers that the U.S. Government had confirmed that the basement apartment had been a bomb factory for at least the past thirty years, they wondered how where Ham had taken the bombs and how many he could have made over three decades.

When they heard on the radio that the discovery in Ham’s apartment had led federal agents to over a dozen similarly abandoned basement factories in cities across the country, they realized that Ham must have had many more connections that just at the factory and at temple.

When the explosions started a month later, they all realized that they hadn’t known Ham Shapiro at all.