The Return of Leela Bruce

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"And so the ink cartridges should be filled with actual honey," I said into the phone. "And it should drip out of the front of the pen. Like....all the time. Even if no one's writing with it."

I paused while I listened to the voice on the other end. "Yes, that's correct. Messy is okay." Another pause. "Yeah, no I want them to be real gold. Golden pens of dripping honey. Yep. That's what I want. It's sort of an in joke. We're really big on in jokes here at Writing About Writing."

"Attention," I heard over the P.A. system. "Attention. This is Cedrick. Effective immediately all doors in the Writing About Writing compound will be spelled with one O. I have exactly one fan in the entire world, and we will pay homage. If you have to go from one room to another, you will be using the Dor."

I took a deep breath. Apparently that conversation we'd had didn't stick as well as I'd hoped.

"Excuse me," Cedrick went on over the P.A. "Leela he's not expecting you, you can't just go–"

That's when my office dor got kicked off its hinges by a well placed spinning side kick. Leela Bruce sauntered in.

"Can you hold for JUST a second?" I asked, putting the call on hold.  "Hi Leela," I said. "Something wrong with the dorknob?"

"I wanted to make an entrance," she said. She flashed some teeth, but I wouldn't have really called it a smile.

"Technically just walking through the dor would be making an entrance." I pointed out.

"A notable entrance," she corrected.

"Yeah, about that," I said. "From a purely statistical standpoint, literally no one ever has actually waited for Cedrick to show them through the dor, so that would be the MOST noteworthy–"

Leela slammed her hands down on my desk. It split down the middle into two half desks. Both pieces fell inward resting in my lap. The laptop, phone, and desk lamp that were on the desk slid down the incline into the newly formed ravine.

"Are you going to hurt me?" I asked, trying not to reveal that having a jagged desk cutting into my femoral nerve already had.

"Why? Are you scared?" she asked.

"No," I lied. "I'm just trying to plan my day."

"Did you just quote a 90's Duchovny movie at me to try and look cool?" Leela asked. She pulled the half desks apart so that they each fell to one side, sending the laptop and desk lamp flying, and left me sitting exposed with some balsa wood powder, mechanical pencils, and the phone in my lap. I wished very much that I hadn't chosen this day to do some work at my desk while I sent my pants to the cleaners.

"How did you know that?" I asked. "Like three people saw that movie."

"You forget where I come from," she said tapping her forefinger on the top of my head at the word come. "Anyway, I came to tell you that you've done well with the sausage fest. Good work getting women guest bloggers. I'll start writing posts for you again."

"That's good," I said. "Because I was about to tell you that the free ride was coming to an end and it is time to earn your keep."

"No you weren't," she said.

"Maybe not, but I really was going to switch out the Buy One Get One Free sandwich coupons to Arby's that I've been paying you with for Free Coffee with $10 Purchase from Taco Bell. Who spends ten dollars at Taco Bell? Honestly? And then when you came to me demanding answers, I would passive aggressively mention that you hadn't written an article in like two years."

Leela rolled her eyes and walked out of my office.

"When can we expect this article?" I called after her.

"When I'm done writing it," she yelled back.

"What's it going to be about?" I yelled louder.

"Dunno!" she shouted as she left the outer office and started down the hall.

"Will you talk to Guy Goodman about also writing a post?" I shouted.

"NOOOOOOPE!" Leela yelled.

"Okay," I said, sitting back in my chair. "Glad we had this chat."

My phone was still in my lap.  I clicked the intercom button. "Uh...Cedrick."

From the outer office where I could see him (because we no longer had a dor), Cedrick turned and looked at me.

"Can we," I said into the intercom, but then realized I could just talk to him across the twenty feet. "Can we get someone in to fix this dor?"

Cedrick nodded, and spun two tentacles into a thumbs up position.

I clicked to line two.  "You still there? Oh great! Hey listen, along with this pen, I'm going to need a desk...."

This post has been edited by Cedrick the Octorian.