Chapter 6: FIXED NICKEL AND DIME CANDIDATES

“Really. Argh, cough. I’M BETTER! Better. Ahem. I’m just (spit) parched.” Gidget roughly whispers, forcing out these words through a dry scratchy throat unaccustomed to speaking for several days.

Regina wonders if Gidget’s health truly is improved. Gidget’s hacking cough response to Regina’s expressed hopes, didn’t sound good. Gidget isn’t taking care of herself, that is obvious. She ported into the dough mixing area, in the rear half of the fresh and raw prep room. Naked, dripping wet, hair smelling faintly of sea water, she bent over, and stuck her head down in the produce wash sink. Using the hand spray, she vigorously rinsed her head and hair with fresh water.

Frequently drinking by haphazardly aiming the sprayer at her mouth, she’s creating a slip hazard for herself, from over-spray running down her body to puddle on the tiled deck where she stands in her bare feet.

Topping off this difficult to rationalize behavior, Gidget opens the heavy stainless clad chillroom door, enters, and sits slouched on an overturned bucket. Naked and wet, sitting in fifty degree F chill air in the fruit-n-veggies fridge is not healthy for even a healthy person. Gidget does not appear healthy. If she’s running a fever the chill could kill her. Regina debates if she should man-handle Gidget, forbid her behaving this way, drag her forcibly back into warmth and a saner environment.

It appears Gidget is pulling her hair out by the roots! Or, it’s coming out on it’s own as she runs her hands through it? Regina fetches her a garbage pail from the chopping table. Places it between Gidget’s feet, for disposal of the tugged loose or fallen out hair. Things couldn’t be worse but things prove indeed they are.

Exposed by hair loss, Gidget’s denuded scalp is horribly scarred. A raised orange wedge, the crescent widest and thickest on top, erupts in a point where skull joins spine, crests over crown, finally tapers to a second point, merging with her nose.

Mostly flesh colored, her scalp, only where formerly grew hair, resembles an ugly cantaloupe rind. It’s furrowed with tiny green veins and brown coruscations, that cover her head like a complicated road-map. Communities of bumps fill the spaces between the thin meandering paths, that must be circuity connecting weird lumps, bumps, nodules, and sparse goose-bump clusters. No flashing leds, thanks for that! Should Gidget say “Resistance is futile!”, Regina permits herself an OK to lose it.

Regina is abruptly recalled from her reverie, when Gidget pleads for food, drink, towels, and a bucket of cold water. Gidget is gnawing on a raw thick unwashed, unscraped carrot. Still stained from the ground and hairy with root threads, the gross carrot seems appropriate, a gruesome accessory for Gidget on her bucket in the fridge, crouching like a malignant Frankenstein monster, vaporous tendrils rising in profusion from her simmering, steaming, horrible, incredibly ugly head.

“Please help me Regina. I can’t get up and serve myself just now, or I would. I need a wet towel and a bucket of cold water, to mop and cool my overheated head. I’s uncomfortably too warm, even in here. I feel faint. I need to cool down. I’m starving, exhausted, and thirsty. What’s happening with me, is consuming massive amounts of energy. I’m so weak, I can barely lift my hand. Help me? Please?”

“Certainly I’ll help all I can, and anyway I can, you poor suffering thing. There! By your feet, there’s gallons of iced tea in jugs on the deck, beneath the lowest shelving. Sweet to your right, and unsweetened on your left. On the shelf above, are cases, with liter cartons, some various juices, but mostly pineapple. Drink all you want sweety. I’ll return with a bucket and towels, and an entire chocolate cake, I just finished frosting. It will be nutritious. Full of eggs, butter, and milk. Rich in carbs. You just relax and assuage that powerful thirst you’re nursing. I’ll be back with the goods! Just be two seconds, Hon. At most a minute, max three.”

Meanwhile, back at the ranch.

“What is my impression?” Wati cranes his neck, swiveling his head, assessing with his keen eyes. “Inefficient.”

“How can you say inefficient? Look behind Lindsay. She’s the cook, sitting there reading a magazine. Without the cook lifting a finger. Pots stirring themselves, dishes washing without human hands? It’s a miracle of efficiency!”

“A waste of space and labor. Two unnecessary and close-by eating establishments, each with seating for crowds, and only feeding a small work force on the ranch.”

“I don’t understand you, Wati!”

“For the few people working here, two kitchens is frivolously extravagant.”

“I understood WHAT you were saying, Wati. What I’m having difficulty with is accepting, that you aren’t perfect. You, who sees everything, in great and fine detail, now can’t see what’s in front of your own face. I’m amazed how unobservant you sometimes are, and are now.”

“What? I’m sorry Randy. My mind is far away.”

“Indeed!” Wati smiles without rancor. Won’t talk about what’s bothering him.

I invite Lindsay over and introduce Wati to her. Her to him.

Finally. Wati shows appreciation for Lindsay’s telekinetic power. They make a date for later. More demonstrations? Wati explains his hidden agenda to me privately, after Lindsay leaves us to enjoy our meals, served impressively plated and delivered by unseen hands. Wati wants to recruit Lindsay for our combat team. She could lob stuff at an enemy from a distance, from long range. I grasp the advantages of a ranged fighter on the squad.

Lindsay informed us, Gidget arrived with Carla and the wild twins, effectively canceling my pledge to rescue them for Nana. I really intended to try when I promised a few hours ago. There just hasn’t been enough time elapsed to organize a mission. A visit to offer Nana my apologies is the correct action. And while there, make good on my promise of services for the ancillary request. Wati accompanies me to assist fucking the cum starved girls. Nana too, if she wishes. Any doubts of our cordial reception?