Disclaimer: Any resemblances here to real people, places, institutions or events are purely coincidental. This is somewhat a work of fiction.

In our mill, all the workers wear uniforms and have badges, that is a picture of themselves on a piece of plastic that has their name on it. I found one of these one day and tried to eat it. Not very good and it gave me a tremendous stomachache.

Anyway, there is this large room where parts and supplies are kept. Most of the time, an employee is stationed at the door, and this employee retrieves materials for other employees that ask for them. This employee usually eats their lunch there, so the place is guarded all the time. This happens on all three shifts.

These employees are usually male. On second shift, a female Big Thing started coming around and talking to this employee. She was not an employee, or at least I don't think so--she did not have one of the badges. She wore a uniform, but it seemed to be from somewhere else.

I watched for a couple of weeks. She would always appear about the same time each evening, about the time the twinkles come out. She got very friendly with the Big Thing that was the employee at the door. She would come in and tease him about his lunch, what was in it, how awful it tasted and so forth.

One day she came in and told him, "I have a better lunch for you. Come with me."

Employee resisted and said he should stay and eat his own lunch.

This went on for several days. Finally, employee decided to leave with her, but before he left he said, "But there will be no one to guard the storeroom."

She said, "Don't worry about that. You can lock it and post your cell phone number here in case anyone needs to call you for parts."

They left.