Problem Solving

“We. Need. Solutions!” A short, round, chubby man stood up at the head of a long white conference table and slammed his stubby hands down. The plump man grabbed his cup of coffee off the table and walked towards the TV. He pressed his stubby finger on a statistic that read ‘23’ on the TV and cleared his throat. 

“This is on average how many verbal fights have occurred between your two fellow co-workers, Jennie and Ryan, in one week.” 

“I didn’t realize it was that bad, Mr. Mark,” a co-worker muttered under their breath, as they took a sip of their steaming hot coffee.

“Yes, Terri, it is that bad. This is a distraction in the workplace and it needs to stop. We’ve tried having them come up with many compromises, and we’ve even threatened them but nothing is working. I need ideas, people! Ideas!” The man said, snapping his fingers. 

One brave woman raised her hand high in the air and waited patiently as Mr. Mark scanned the room for anyone else who had a possible solution. 

After a few awkward moments of silent pleading from Mr. Mark, he let the woman explain her idea for a solution. 

“So, my mom did this when my siblings and I were younger whenever we would start fighting. She would purposely, but discreetly, make increasingly weird and bad things happen to us, and it would drive us closer together because we would be the only two that weird things were happening to. For example, when my brother Brodie and I got into an argument one time, the next day when I was making cereal, the milk from the milk carton wasn’t actually milk. It was orange juice. And when my brother Brodie went to get on the bus for school, he realized he had a baby shark squishy in his backpack.” Everyone burst out laughing and even Mr. Mark was about to spit out his coffee. 

Once everyone settled down, Mr. Mark continued on with his spiel. “That is actually not a bad idea. I like your thinking Rebecca. Everyone, get ready for some crazy things to happen. If anyone asks, this meeting never happened,” Mr. Mark said with a smirk. 

The next day during the final hour of work, Jennie noticed something strange happening. 

“Did anyone feel that?” Jennie said, feeling a drop of water hit her inner calf. She looked around, but no one said anything. Jennie just continued on with her work until a few moments later she felt more drops. She looked around once more and saw the same thing was happening to Ryan. She drew her attention back to her computer, but more and more drops kept hitting her legs. The water drops fell, or rather rose faster and faster until it was raining upside down in Jennie’s cubicle. Water pelted her legs and the soles of her shoes, and when she stood up and looked down water sprayed her in the face too. She looked up to avoid getting water in her face and saw that water was pooling on the ceiling. Jennie took off her glasses, wiped them, and put them back on but still saw the water on the ceiling. She ran out of her cubicle drenched in water and went over to Ryan’s cubicle only to see the same exact thing was happening to him! Ryan was thrashing around his cubicle, taking off his shirt and putting it on his monitor so it wouldn’t get wet. He turned around and bolted out of his cubicle running for the men’s restroom. Jennie, who was positively starstruck at this point, went to the front desk and grabbed her coat. She turned to look back to her cubicle, which was still raining upside down, and water was still pooling on the ceiling. She told the man at the front desk she was leaving early today and walked out the door. It was only a few moments later before Ryan did the same thing. 

When Jennie got home, she flung her shoes off and plopped down on the couch to watch some TV. Today was a very weird day. It was only an hour or so before she heard a knock on her. Jennie groaned and slid off the couch to go to answer the door until she noticed the windows by her front door were covered by what looked to be construction paper. She opened the door to check if her windows were really covered by construction paper, and didn’t even notice that no one was there. She tore the construction paper off her windows and stormed back inside to throw the paper in the recycling. But, then she saw that her kitchen windows were covered with construction paper. She took her glasses off, wiped them, and put them back just to make sure she wasn’t seeing things. She flung open the sliding glass door in the back and stomped to her kitchen window and tore off the construction paper. She came back in, locked the door, threw the paper in the recycling, and ran upstairs to check if her bedroom window had construction paper on it. And of course, it did. She went back downstairs and dialed Ryan to see if the same thing was happening to him. 

“Ryan, are your windows covered with construction paper?”

“Yes, there is! How did you know Jennie? I’m kind of freaking out right now!”

“Something strange is going on. I don’t like this one bit.”

“Same. Okay, maybe I’m just spit-balling here, but maybe our boss, Mr. Mark has something to do with this. I mean, he always said that if we didn’t get along and stop disrupting everyone then he’ll make us pay. Maybe this is his way of making us pay.” 

“I always knew that man was messed up. Tomorrow at work, we have to walk in, holding hands, and we can’t argue the entire day. Got it?”

“Got it. See you tomorrow Jennie.”

“Bye,” Jennie said. She hung up the phone and put her phone on the charger. Jennie is going to bed early to get a full night’s sleep. She’ll need it for tomorrow if she’s going to survive getting along with Ryan. 

The next day, Jennie and Ryan woke up at the same, did their morning routines, met up at each other’s house, and walked to work. They strutted into work at the same time, holding hands just like they planned. It turns out, Ryan was right. Mr. Mark was behind it all. Nothing strange happened the entire day. They were finally out of that hellish fever dream.