THE FINE PRINT

THE FINE PRINT

Don't forget to read it! 

Creative corporate person-hood goes awry

The fact that I needed an F.B.I. clearance and a non-disclosure agreement to work a private party at the Met told me two things. I’d be serving a bunch of elite tightwads who’d run my ass ragged without ever looking me in the eye or acknowledging anything but my servitude and I’d be earning minimum wage. The activist in me rebelled. The broke waitress hoped to get paid in time to cover the shoes I’d ordered earlier on the Jungleland Ordering System Site (JOSS), before my rent check bounced. 

I was right outside the event when my cell vibrated…Order out for delivery…We are…blah blah blah…  Awesome! And fast! When I get home, a pair of ankle straps would be waiting!
I hit “Accept” and shoved the phone back in my bra.

Inside, smoothing the skirt of the low-cut, streetwalker-red maid’s uniform, I found my assigned station manned by a not-surprisingly hunky bartender.

"Suzie,” I said, “Yours for the night.”

“Brad,” he smiled, “At your service.”

“So, Brad, who’re we schlepping for?”

“Government. Big mucky-mucks.” Did I detect disdain?

A man wagged his finger at me. I plastered on my million-dollar smile and approached.

“Chatov on the rocks, and take your time walking away, honey,” he said.

Shielding my backside with my tray, I returned to the bar. “He wants Chatov,” I told Brad.

“Asshole!” Brad said. “He knows Chatov’s an illegal import. Take this, he won’t know the difference.”

A tall man wearing a festive crown tapped a microphone.

“Welcome to the Office of Corporate Planning’s New Year’s Soirée! Why are we here?”

I raised my eyebrows at Brad, who shrugged.

“Because public opposition to our corporate personhood status is rampant,” he began. “Protecting our status will involve new strategies. Re-inventing interpretations of the fine print within the current law is necessary. Tonight is about forming progressive and creative relationships…and the party’s on the taxpayers!”

Cheers rang out.

“Table assignments are algorithm-based to consider highest association benefits. How can we best serve each other before Janurary first?. ”

 

Handshakes crisscrossed the tablecloths as corporate heads cozied up to their tablemates.

“Lastly,” Henry interjected, “the gift exchange takes place at eleven sharp. I trust your contributions are extravagant enough to garner the highest possible yield in terms of tax relief!”

“Gift exchange?” execs whispered. “…nobody mentioned…”

Texts to harried assistants instructed to “spare no expense” shot like missiles into cyberspace. I imagined JOSS’s 3-note musical logo cascading across the universe like tumbling wind chimes.
 
“How’s your eavesdropping skills?” Brad asked, loading my tray with exotic wines and spirits.

“I know a good thing when I hear it,” I answered, heaving it off the bar. Practicing subservience with a smile, I weaved in and out of wafting cigar smoke and clinking glasses, taking orders and countering unwanted advances. My naturally curious nature took in the cornucopia of devious conspiracies it overheard, designed to cheat the common folk in the coming year.

Love bloomed abruptly between Oklahoma Oil and Worldwide Environmental Investigations. An illegal, non-denominational wedding was officiated, under the theory that a corporate wife couldn’t testify against a corporate husband. When that revelation swept the room, the game was on!  People entered and exited the marriage corner like an outhouse flanking a chili cook-off.

“Can you believe this?” I asked.

“They’re perverting the system,” Brad snarled. His passion surprised me.

He nodded toward a table where I subsequently found Meridian Cell and Santiago Optics vying for adoption rights to Calistoga Tower Construction, for access to inheritance laws.

I was reaching over a frocked gentleman when my cleavage began to jiggle and buzz. “What the hell?” My phone had been off. I silenced the alert. Back at the bar, Brad paused in mid pour.

“Your tits are twitching.”

I fished my phone back out. It was on.

“It won’t stay off!” I cried, shoving it at Brad.

“You’ve got a JOSS delivery.”

“I know. It should be waiting when I get home.”

“You clicked accept?” he looked stricken.

“Yes.”

“Didn’t you read the fine print?”

“What fine print?”

“We are testing new technology,” he read, “which utilizes cellular GPS to target location. By accepting, user agrees to turn over operating system and GPS function to JOSStech for real time delivery.”

“What does that even mean?”  

It buzzed again.

“JOSS’s taken over your…” Brad began, when a drone clutching a cardboard box came crashing through the Atrium window. It circled the room, dipping over guests like a drug-sniffing pigeon before razing the bar and dropping its box at my feet.

Four hundred eyes turned on me. Brad hurtled the bar like a defending lineman. The air began to buzz, which I misinterpreted as a sign I would swoon. Brad’s eyes dropped again to my bust-line.

It wasn’t me!

The sound, like a horde of hornets, grew louder as agitated partygoers began poking their phones and dozens of drones seeking their coordinates came smashing through glass from all directions, colliding in mid-air. I wasn’t the only one to miss the fine print.

 They jockeyed for airspace and tangled in chandeliers. JOSS packages rained down, overturning punchbowls, toppling centerpieces, sinking in guacamole, knocking people unconscious. Chaos reigned.

Brad ushered me and my box out of the pandemonium into the street, while speed-dialing his mother.

“Mom! I’m early! Order dessert!

Awwww.

I was poised for goodbye when he jerked me into the shadows. Black ops vehicles converged, spilling commandos who stormed the Met. When they exited again, handcuffed party-goers marched single file.

“What just happened?” I gasped. “How’d they know?”

“Maybe mom told them,” Brad smiled, flipping me a card; 

M.U.M.

Mopping up Muck
in America

“You’re an underground SPY?” I marveled. “Ok, satisfy my curiosity,” I continued, watching the buxom woman in the tight black dress being led away. “I understood the benefits of all those corporate weddings except one. Nerds and Hookers. Explain what possible advantage was garnered by that union between Pussycats Unlimited and Genius International?”

“Trophy wives.” Brad said with a knowing wink.

~By taree Belardes

NYC Flash Fiction Competition 2017 (Final round entry)                                                                                          Genre: Open
Location: An office  holiday party                                                                                                       Object: A UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle)
Word limit: 1000                                                                                                                                Time limit: 48 hrs