PURE FICTION

Animal Crackers

After a long day of counting wires at their job, most of the workers at Wireworks were ready to go home and unwind. Nolan and his close friend, Leah were eager to leave the building, after being disappointed, that they didn’t leave at 11 am instead of 4 pm.

They were used to leaving early on inventory days, so the disappointment they felt was ready to erupt from within. Before they could leave the building. The big bosses wanted all the workers to head to the break room to receive whatever mystery rewards they had for them.

‘’Whatever they have for us better be a $1,000 gift card’’, said Nolan. Leah laughed at Nolan’s statement. ‘’That would be the day, we would all be rich if we got that from Wireworks’’, Leah replied. ‘’Yes indeed’’, Nolan added. They both entered the break room to join the rest of their co-workers who were standing up and waiting to see what the big bosses had to say.

There were four bosses standing behind four economy fold-in-half tables. The ringleader Arlene (with her expressive glasses) began to speak to the crew. ‘’So everyone, you’ve all done such a wonderful job today with inventory, it was a great success’’ Arlene said. That comment had several workers rolling their eyes in their heads, while others had big smiles on their faces.

‘’So we wanted to give you guys something as an appreciation for your hard work today and the last five months.’’, Arlene added.

Nolan, Leah, and other workers were excited to see what they would be getting. They saw the bosses grabbing a lot of red bags out of these large brown boxes.

Their excitement turned to confusion.

‘’Are those?’’, asked Nolan.

‘’NO!’’, he thought in his head.

He & Leah saw Arlene and her small army giving away animal crackers to their co-workers. ‘’You gotta be kidding me?’’ said Leah. Nolan was beside himself, he couldn’t believe this was what their superiors were rewarding them with after a tiring day at work. He saw one of his co-workers, Jiles head towards the exit door.

Jiles looked furious and couldn’t contain his resentment for his leaders any longer. So, he stormed off and opened the exit door with power. Other workers who felt the same way as Jiles followed suit and left, feeling insulted by the thank you from their bosses for their hard work.

Not all workers felt this way. There were a couple who were happy to receive animal crackers. ‘’Animal crackers, I haven’t had these since I was a kid!’’ yelled Darius. ‘’Well, there’s plenty of them, take some more, Darius!’’ replied Arlene.

Nolan was conflicted. He wanted to leave work, like Jiles and the others did, but, he was too close to Arlene & the other bosses. So, he reluctantly headed towards them, to grab some animal crackers, to take home. Leah was in front of him and got A LOT of animal crackers. ‘’Thank you’’ she told Arlene. ‘You’re very welcome, Leah’’, replied Arlene.

‘’We appreciate everything you do’’ Arlene added. ‘’Goodbye Nolan’’. ‘’See you tomorrow, Leah’’. Nolan was up next to get his animal crackers. ‘’Nolan, how are you doing?’’ asked Arlene. ‘’Good’’ replied Nolan. ‘’Well good, I’m glad, we appreciate your hard work, you know that..right?’’ asked Arlene. ‘’Most definitely’’, answered Nolan.

‘’Here, you take these two big bags of animal crackers’’ Arlene said. ‘’Oh wow, thank you so much’’ said Nolan. ‘’You’re welcome’’ said Arlene. ‘’See you tomorrow, Nolan’’ ‘’See you tomorrow, Arlene’’. Nolan couldn’t believe that Arlene gave him two HUGE bags of animal crackers. There were plenty of animal crackers to last him until next year.