A Cold Day in Hell

It was cold enough to freeze the tits off of a brass witch. The temperature was at least 5 below when I arrived at the dump at 6:15. I say “at least” since the red alcohol had frozen at this number in the old Valvoline thermometer on my back porch. When I tried to open the lock on the gates of the dump, the key snapped off like Wayne Bobbit’s manhood. I retrieved the bolt cutters from atop the bikes piled in the bed of my pickup truck. (I had had a busy day at the high school yesterday. I planned to use the money from this score to pay for my planned lovehandles’s liposuction.) The chain around the gates of the dump succumbed to the bolt cutters with a loud “thwack” and I swung open the gates … leaving ski trails in the hoarfrost on the macadam.
I unlocked the office without further mishap and started up the old potbelly stove with some of Lardass’s porno magazines and the Big Cheese’s Vaseline hair tonic. In a few minutes I had a blazing inferno which I then sustained with some Hepplewhite chairs that I had previously retrieved from the Give and Take and broken-up. I glanced out the window to see a fireworks of sparks coming out of the shack’s stovepipe which, mixing with the light snow, created little steam puffs. I then tended to Mr. Coffee and checked the messages on our antique answering machine. As expected, the Big Cheese had left a message the night before saying he was “coming down with something and wouldn’t be in today.” He punctuated this with a fake cough and a beery burp. I sighed hoping that this would be the end to the staff malingering this morning. To my surprise, it was … as everyone else soon staggered in clapping their hands and stomping their feet to restore circulation.
I soon then remembered why the staff was so diligent this AM. This was the day that year-end bonuses were to be distributed. This task was normally performed by the Big Cheese and, his being absent, left me in a bit of a quandary. I had no idea who was to get what and where the envelopes stuffed with cash had been stored. I took my career in my shaky hands as I punched out the Big Cheese’s phone number. After about twenty rings, he finally came on in a squeaky falsetto trying to sound like his live-in Argentinean trollop. When he realized that this didn’t fool me, he angrily ask what the bleep I was doing calling him in his infirmary. I sheepishly reminded him about the bonus thing and asked him where the envelopes might be so that I could fend off a staff insurrection. He sneered and responded, “Like always, they are in the stovepipe, stupid!”