"Oh, there's that burning smell again! What is it? What's on fire? Where's it coming from?"
"It's woodsmoke. From outside."
"But how do you know?"
"I was outside at lunchtime, and I could smell it then."
"But how do you know it's woodsmoke?"
"... because the air is smoky, and smells of burning wood?"
"Since when? When did this start?"
"It's been like that all day. When I left to come here this morning there was a blanket of smoke over the suburb where we both live."*
"But how can you tell it's wood?"
I'm trying to think of a polite way of not bothering to even answer this when the Stress Fiend comes to my rescue: "Because he went out into the forest and set it on fire! What do you think?"
"Oh, so it's a burn-off. Is it a burn-off? Are they having a burn-off? Where? Where can you find out?"
"I don't know." (Although actually it was more like "Hnn-nnh" accompanied by an indifferent shrug in the hope she'd leave me alone.)
"How can I be sure it's a burn-off? How do I know it's not my computer?"
I don't know. Maybe because your computer isn't made of wood?
* Yes, alarmingly enough that's true. Presumably for sins in a past life, La Mondaine lives only a couple of streets away from me. Since discovering that, leaving the house during daylight hours has taken on a hitherto-unknown dimension of terror.
3 comments:
Is it the smell of burning witches? Does her computer float?
Great comment gregor42. I chuckled.
Really enjoying the frequent updates. As I've said before, I feel bad that you seem always to get to work with such winners. And guilty that I enjoy the stories so much.
Just hope she doesn't try to get you to carpool. (Or if she does, perhaps you can locate the spot you had picked out to bury the cow-orker when you had to ride with her).
gregor42: We could probably replace her computer with a balsa wood replica that would not only float, but allow her to be at least as productive as she is now. (I also realised much later the burning smell could could have been the the sawdust in her head overheating. There haven't been any reports of people being turned into newts, so the smoke probably wasn't from witches.)
klc: Thanks - I'm trying (again) to update more frequently as things happen rather than let them build up into one giant ball of pain & madness. I should be safe from carpooling, but what I'm really afraid of is ending up on the same bus as her - we both catch the same route from the same stop. So I've started arriving deliberately late on her days, just to make sure that doesn't happen.
And don't feel guilty - I'm sure karma will catch up with you at some point.
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