REALLY BIG CHANGES... and repercussions (Part 133e)

REALLY BIG CHANGES... and repercussions (Part 133e)

At home, Elle had some ‘news’ regarding the school Board. She’d gotten a call from Phyl about Ginger and learned that there was another ”special’ meeting coming up on Thursday night. After telling Elle about it she realized she shouldn’t have said anything about it and made Elle promise not to say anything. Find me a female who’s told to keep a secret, and will, would have to be a corpse. To me it didn’t make much difference since I was no longer involved and whatever the Board decided we were all going to have to live with. I had more to worry about than that.

Speaking of Ginger, her procedure was scheduled for the next day. Elle agreed to take her two older girls for the afternoon to give her mother a break. I didn’t really understand the operation although I knew what it was supposed to correct. I also knew Elle was monitoring the whole thing. The recovery time was going to consume most of the Summer and Elle wasn’t about to give that up. However, she truly wanted to know all she could, especially the end result.

Tuesday found Hobie in much better spirits. I didn’t want to ‘bug’ him but, as I said, all the sub-committee actions would affect my areas of responsibility. The specific thing I wanted to know about was his comment that the new Trustees had to be “educated”. I don’t remember how I got him to open up on that but it boiled down to the fact that they both had come in thinking it was like a country club where they could just walk in and join committees of their choice. It was Joe that got Hobie’s ire up when he decided he wanted to be on the salary committee. How do I put it... it was the most prestigious sub-committee at the bank and the members had been chosen over a period of time. Hobie didn’t go into detail but did say that Joe talked his way into listening in on the discussion. THAT bothered me!. I wasn’t as interested in the other new Trustee so only half-heartedly listened as Hobie told me about his gaffe.

That bit of information had me thinking more and more about my salary increase as the day progressed. Hobie and the attorney Trustee had given me hints that I was in line for a nice raise. My hope was that Joe had been told to just observe and to not speak. The ‘sting’ of his selection in the school Board election not making it and him knowing I worked hard to get Bob elected were factors in my thoughts.

It was about 2pm when Hank, the messenger custodian walked across the lobby floor about as fast as I’d ever seen him go. He was huffing and puffing but it wasn’t because he was out of breath so much as the fact that he’d just had a run-in with a truck driver with a delivery.  I asked what was being delivered and all he could say was that there were “a lot of big boxes”. When we got to the parking lot there was this tractor trailer basically blocking the ingress/egress to the the whole lot. A rough looking, burly man was standing by the back door of the trailer with his arms folded. I asked him what was in the trailer and he shot back “Eighteen cartons... where do you want them?” I got him to give me the packing list and found that they were the picnic coolers for the gift campaign. I was totally unprepared for a delivery but I knew I had to get the truck and trailer moved. The cellar door was right there and after determining that they didn’t weigh all that much, told him to toss them down the opening. While this was taking place customers were blowing their car horns to try and get the truck to move and customers were yelling at us. To add to it a couple of Trustees walked by and queried what was going on.

Thankfully, the heat was off and the boiler was cold. I grabbed Bret and Hank and we tried to straighten out the mess as a few of the cartons broke open and spilled coolers all around. All three of us were all hot and perspiring by the time we’d gotten them in some semblance of order. There were two gross of them in all and I wondered what the Trustees were thinking when they ordered that many. The doors were closed to the public when we got back upstairs and when I got to my desk Trish had a message for me to report to the Board room. It was not what I wanted to hear.

One of the long time Trustees was of the haughty type, wanting to know everything about anything. He wanted to know who was responsible for the mess in the parking lot. I didn’t know what to answer. I tried to explain that I’d gotten no indication that the items were being delivered in spite of my request to know so we would be prepared. The same Trustee then asked why I’d had all of the product delivered at one time and why it wasn’t being “dropped shipped” when needed. I had no answer because I’d not been involved in placing the order. I started to mention this when another Trustee made a comment along the lines of hoping that the ‘gift program’ would go off better than this. I never got to finish. Going back downstairs I had to pass by the switchboard. Netta was busy trying to pull the front of her blouse down with her hand up her skirt and I got a glimpse of white. I wasn’t sure if it was her slip or her panties but, for a few seconds, it took my mind off the criticism I’d just received. The one thing the last Trustee got right was that the program was off to a rough start.

I left at 5pm and actually made it home before Elle did. I’d changed my clothes and was checking up on the nuts and bolts of the new lawn swing when I heard music from next door. Of course I had to go to the opening in the hedge to take a peek and there was Sabrina, lying on a chaise lounge with a radio blaring. It only took a few seconds for me to realize that the flowered panties I’d seen her wearing a while back were actually the bottom part of a two piece bathing suit. Lying there I could see the bra matched the bottoms which, by the way, looked just like a pair of panties. I stayed there for maybe a minute before returning to the swing. I tried to remember just what else she'd been wearing on that day but I couldn’t. Thinking about it some more I couldn’t think of a good reason for her to have done that and just added it to the other quirks I'd noticed about her.

Elle showed up shortly thereafter and had Bess, Ginger’s oldest daughter, with her. She looked a lot like her mother... round, rosy cheeks with dirty blonde hair. Anne had asked if she could stay over and after Elle had assured Ginger’s mother that it was no bother, she joined our girls. Just for the fun of it we decided to make supper a sort of picnic with the girls eating while sitting in the swing. It served to help take my mind off work and the Board meeting the next day.

Just as we finished up Sabrina and Martin came through the opening in the hedge. Sabrina now had on a mini dress and my immediate thought was to wonder if she had left on the bathing suit bottom. They wanted to know if we would join them for a birthday party for Bebe (Pete’s girlfriend) at her parent’s restaurant. “Big B” was going to be there as well as Tom, the other member of our racing pit crew. Elle, because of having Bess as a guest declined but said it would be OK for me to go. I hesitated for a few seconds and then decided...What the hell!

To be continued...