Chapter 5: Christmas Shopping II

Everyone in the family greeted us as we went in except Sally. Apparently she was not allowed to leave her room while I was there. Cindy still stayed with me, though.

Mr. Jeffreys had been talking to the people at GEOPRA, the Georgia state PRA. They were thinking about doing their training on the 28th or 29th, the Tuesday or Wednesday of the following week. I told him I was good either way and sent out a group text to everyone in Team Newbie to see if either day worked for everyone.

I got replies back from George and Matt almost immediately. Either day would work for them, just tell them as early as possible. We sat and watched TV for a while, just talking about everything.

While I was talking to Mr. Jeffreys about my search for quarterstaffs my Mom called, asking if I could take Elaine out in the morning. Sure, Mom! Is Elaine actually going to, you know, GET UP in the morning? ‘Cause I might as well stay here for the night if she isn’t gonna get up...

Cindy was all for that, but I got waves of disapproval from two parents in my face and one parent in my ear. No, I need to come home for the night. I can sleep in, though, until Elaine gets up. Fine. I’ll come home under protest.

Mr. Jeffreys seemed to think that the PRA, either ALPRA or USPRA, should be the ones talking to that mill about the quarterstaffs. They would know how many they needed, and they could pay for them. So, I sent Jim a text asking if he could call me about GEOPRA, etc.

He called in a couple of minutes and I explained what we were thinking. Honestly, every 15-year-old staffer in the country should get a wooden practice staff. Well, the whole world, but the PRA was only going to take care of the US. The sooner they got their staff, the more practice and experience they would have on their first dive. He agreed to talk to his counterpart in Milledgeville as well as the USPRA training people in DC.

One of the issues was size. How many of each size did we need? Jim also agreed to ask about getting a ‘fitting set’ of three-foot dowels in 1/8” increments from 1-1/2” thick all the way up to 2-1/2”. If we had to, we could take that fitting set with us wherever we went, but really every state’s training office should have a set.

It might not be needed, though. We weren’t really training people to use quarterstaffs. They were just convenient stand-ins to use until they could use their real staffs. Cindy’s Healer Staff was the same size as Matt’s and Margie’s Fire Staffs. They were all about 1-3/4” thick. It wasn’t exact, it was a little more, but it was close. They probably weren’t Metric, either, at about 4.5cm or 45mm. They were probably some round number in whatever measurements the Portal System used.

1-3/4” was a little smaller than I or Mr. Jeffreys would want, but honestly it was a little too thick for Cindy’s hands. Matt and Margie thought it was ‘just right’, though. Was that actually true, or was it just the bonding effect?

And did that matter? Jim said they’d ask all the experienced staffers they could reach. If they all had the same thickness staffs, and they all said they were happy with them, we should just get a bunch of 1-3/4” thick quarterstaffs for the new people to practice with and forget about the sizing thing. If we kept feeding Cindy maybe she’d grow some.

Nell and Cindy and I got a couple of minutes to talk, out in their back yard. Cindy and I were thinking about Cindy providing Healing in the local hospitals, and we really wanted Nell to think it over. She couldn’t do much, but a little bit three times a day could save three lives. Or improve someone’s quality of life. But, we didn’t want our own lives ruined.

Nell promised to think it over, and asked our permission to talk to Cindy’s parents about it. Well, sure, but I asked if she could talk to me about her thoughts before she brought them in. She agreed.

I got a text from Eric before I left to drive home. He and Margie were available either day. Well, I guess they are working out okay if he can answer for both of them. I passed that on to Mr. Jeffreys.

I completely forgot about the auctions until I got home, pulled out the laptop, and looked at my email. I needed to set up delivery for the four paws we’d sold, and start another group of auctions for four more and some centipede legs. Tomorrow.

I was in bed by ten on Monday night, and I slept great. After I closed my bedroom window, I mean. It was too cold outside to leave that open all night. I’d already noticed that I slept great every night after I got ‘quality time’ with Cindy or Nell. I hoped they slept great, too.

I was up long before six, so I fixed a pot of coffee and started going through my email and working on my to-do list. One item took care of itself. I’d made a note to track those three unidentified items I’d given to that courier in Atlanta. He’d sent me an email on Saturday; he’d dropped off my three unidentified items while I was in the Portal fighting spiders. He had no prediction of when they would ‘process’ my things, but they had my email and phone number and were supposed to let me know.

Georgina had also replied to my email about mining the ALPRA Weapons database and I’d seen it had an attachment, but I hadn’t gotten into it yet. That would be sometime when I had time to think about what I was doing. I really didn’t want her to conclude that I was a loose cannon rolling around. With everything on my ‘do now’ list, that might have to wait until after Christmas.

I ended up sending four identical emails to the four winners, pointing out that I had to deliver all four items and I would be doing it in ‘buyer order’ so DC first, then Kansas City, then California, and Texas last. I asked for a schedule of when they were available, whether it was ‘only on Tuesdays from 7:30 to 8pm’ or (preferably) ‘normal business hours, 9-5 Monday through Friday’ so that I could do it all in one trip. Until I got something back from all of them, I probably wasn’t going to get any further on that.

Another email went to the support address for PortalControl.com, asking if they had the ‘related items’ code ready for testing. While I waited for an answer on that, I set up text files with everything I’d need for the four paws we’d be selling together as well as the four centipede legs we’d be selling individually. Those, at least, we could actually have unique descriptions of since they were all slightly different sizes. Not much more I can do on that task, either.

What else? Water bottles! I found someone selling ammo pouches online, that had a size that A) would hold two half-liter disposable water bottles and B) could be mounted on a belt. I bought eight and had to pay extra for guaranteed delivery before Christmas. Everyone could use one, and some of us could carry more than one. They’d get used. If we lined them with Kevlar on the inside they’d even double as sacrificial armor for our butts.

By the time I was done ordering the ammo pouches I had a new email from PortalControl. It wasn’t really an answer, just an acknowledgment that someone working the night shift had seen my email about the ‘related items’ request and had forwarded it to the Dev Team. They should send a ‘real’ answer sometime today. Fair enough.

Eventually I ran out of important stuff to do, or I got tired of it, one or the other, and went out into the den with the laptop. I had the TV on the morning cartoons for Elaine if she ever got up, but I was just mindlessly surfing the ‘net when Mom came out and fixed her coffee.

She asked how my Christmas shopping was going. I had to admit that I still needed to get something for Cindy. A nice card just didn’t seem like enough, but a negligee was probably too much.