Tuesday 23 April 2013

Interlude - The Mini-Mogget Adoption Agency

Oh, are we still doing this? I thought that filing error had been sorted out.

Apparently not. Now not only am I receiving copies of random people's... heck, this isn't even a mission report, just a 'here's what I've been up to' sort of thing... but I'm also being sent copies of other people's responses to them. What am I expected to do with that? Post them? Read them and laugh? Eat them? Who knows.

Report: The Mini-Mogget Adoption Agency
Agents: Skeet and Amy, DMS
Continuum: None, but mentioning Abhorsen

I have to admit, even though I still have no idea why this stuff is being forwarded to me, that I found this report quite funny. Unlike some agents, Skeet and/or Amy (I don't know which one wrote this up - the usual Third Person Past Tense problem) is actually capable of writing down speech the way it was said, rather than describing themselves as declaiming great works every time they open their mouth. Of course, in some cases that could be a bad thing, but Skeet and Amy are genuinely funny, with... well, I get told off for saying 'chemistry', but you know what I mean.

I do get the feeling the recorder has understated a few things - in particular, despite the fact that there are apparently thirty-odd mini-Moggets running around the room, they spend remarkably little time underfoot. Clearly the recorder has simply avoided the repetition of writing "and then I tripped over a mini" a dozen times, but it still registered. Given how much space /three/ mini-Balrogs can take up when they get together (back when Agent Illian's RC was a regular playground for Thanduril, Witchking and Elberath), I refuse to believe the mini-Moggets were that quiet.

But I'm not really the one who's responding to this report. When it came through my door, it had a sheet of yellow note-paper clipped to it. I've reproduced it below.

-T. Ryan, Dept. of Personnel, DOGA Archivist



Dear Agents Skeet & Amy,

I have read your report with great interest - and by interest I mean rising fury. Are you aware of how long proper concrit takes to make? Even after we manage to track down enough reviews which actually give it - no easy task, I tell you, since a square meter of concrit takes approximately a hundred and ten lines of good-quality source material - we have to grind up the generic rocks (which of course necessitates going into a badfic which features them - and yes, we have to do this ourselves even though we're Infrastructure, not Action), source the blessed water (it doesn't matter who blesses it, of course - it's the blessing itself that acts as a binding agent - but most priests balk at the idea of blessing a hundred tonnes of water at a go), and mix the whole thing together, which is nowhere near as easy as it sounds.

And what do you do with all our hard work? You go and slice gigantic holes through it. Never mind that using a chainsaw on concrit will set up resonances that weaken the structure of the whole wall - never mind that a lot of the piping and wiring for HQ (yes, we do have that stuff, what did you think the place ran on - magic?) runs through those walls - never mind that if you had bothered to ask, we'd've been more than happy to make you a proper door - no, you just go lashing out with your power tools while making comments like "what Building Maintenance didn’t see, wouldn’t bother them", "They can get kind of... funny... about stuff like this", and "What, you think that we’re gonna get in twice as much trouble because we made the hole twice as big?"

To which, by the way, the answers are 'Yes it will', 'Yes, we do', and 'Yes, you very much are'.

But hey, it's not all bad. At least you had a good time, set up an adoption centre for your pet cats, and, oh yeah, mentioned your RC number in your report. I'll be seeing you shortly.

Yours in aggravated anticipation,

Agent Colt, Department of Operations, Building Maintenance

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