END OF SUMMER... September (Part 90j)

By then Amy had come out into the garage. I told Crash about my earlier race cars and  who had driven them and upon hearing it his whole personality changed. Stand offish until then it was like he became my best friend. I remember him dispatching Amy back into the house to get us some beers. That was something I definitely didn’t need right about then. I begged off and told him about my current circumstances. He told me that I could leave all the stuff there and by the time we walked out to my car he even volunteered to help me put the motor together. It was a good afternoon... until I looked at my watch. It was late and I knew I was going to have to embellish my story for Elle.
When I got home I don’t think she believed me but I do remember that she wasn’t all that mad. She knew something was “up” but wasn’t ready to press me on it. Thank goodness.

I knew the following week was going to be busy. First up was exposing John to the full blown “Manic Monday”. What with testing up to 90 women and applying the changes we’d tried the previous Monday I was excited. Behind that was having to work on the Machine Operator’s test. Vi didn’t complain when Mrs K informed her that Marty was going to take it over. He showed me what she’d created and I held my tongue when I scanned it. There wasn’t much there and what there was far too basic, at least in my eyes. There was a lot of work ahead and I knew there was pressure to get it done quickly.
 
John and I were at the County Center to pick up the test booklets at 8am but Mrs K wasn’t. She was about 10 minutes late and apologized profusely. I was a bit concerned about being late but, on our drive to the site, John seemed convinced that with the new application procedure we’d introduced the previous Monday that we’d be OK. I sort of dismissed his optimism since he’d never experienced up to possibly 90+ women waiting at the door.

Long story short... it want amazingly well. By 9:45am the majority were all seated and the exam started at 10 sharp. I don’t remember exactly how many were there but almost all 96 seats were full. We started scoring the exams as soon as the applicants turned them in and they were all scored by a little after noon. I’d told John to bring a lunch as there wouldn’t be time to eat. Man, was I wrong! We also implemented the last of my ideas which entailed posting a list of those who had passed using a number system. The prior procedure was to have all the women be seated in the room and then the names of those who passed was read. I’d felt badly for those who’s names were not read. Under the new system, we posted the numbers of those who passed on the door and what it meant was that when we opened the doors at 1pm only those who passed came inside and we could start the typing tests almost immediately. As I remember it we managed to test over 60 women and were on our way back to the Center a little after 4pm. I was one happy man.

We got back to the office just a little too late to unload the typewriters and typing tables but Marty saw us in the parking lot. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing because, in the past, getting back by 6pm was good. He wanted to know everything that we’d done to accomplish this feat. I remember him shaking his head in a sort of disbelief but when we finished I also remember hearing him say “Good work, guys... Good work” That meant a lot.

Now, backing up just a bit... The typing tests were given up on the stage with the applicants facing the closed curtains. The reason for this was to have the stage lighting behind them and on their work. Right from the first time I’d seen the place I was aware of how hot and stuffy it got because of the lights after about an hour. There were no windows to open and only the doors on each end of the stage for ventilation. I’d spent a little time looking around and found that the curtains were not connected and that on each side they was operated by a hand crank. I told John that we could open one of the curtains and that it should help with air circulation. With no air conditioning we only had the windows on each side of the main auditorium for air. He thought it was worth a try.

To be truthful I couldn’t see a difference right away but decided to leave the curtain open anyway feeling that it wouldn’t hurt. As we got down to the last few groups I went down onto the auditorium floor to start stacking the chairs and gathering our supplies. As I went about moving the chairs I looked up at the stage and, at first, almost couldn’t believe my eyes. The stage was about hip high for me or about 3 1/2 feet up. That meant that my eye level was just about even with the knees of those taking the test. However, of the three who were typing away two had their legs spread apart resting against the legs of the typing table. I’m sure my jaw dropped. I had two very nice upskirt peeks and, when I say nice, it was more than just a triangle that I was looking at. I don’t remember how long I stood there before realizing that it would not be a good idea to get caught.

I continued stacking chairs until the next group was seated hoping that the group I'd seen was not an anomaly. There was only one this time and it took a minute or so for her legs to open. I felt guilty so waved to John and told him to come on down. We had a timer with a bell to signal the end of the time for typing so I wasn’t too worried about that. I got John to stand facing me with my back to the typists and motioned for him to look up on the stage. It was funny. He didn’t know why I was doing that but when he saw that one woman I swear his eyes bugged out of his head. I let him stay on the floor while I took the last group. I don’t remember if any of them provided a worthwhile peek or not but I do remember we had a very interesting conversation on our way back. We also decided that the split curtain was going to be the norm from that time on.


To be continued...