Hi Everyone!I hope you all had a wonderful Mother’s Day! I went to brunch with my family and my grandparents. We all consumed way too much food and enjoyed a chocolate fountain.
Life is good! 
I had so much fun with the story this week. I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it! 🙂
The topic this week was Welcome to my Work week. My day job is selling cordless window shades to mental institutions and colleges. Not very exciting to write about. So I had no ideas there.
We also needed to include a folk remedy. That didn’t help germinate anything either… (Sorry for the bad pun I couldn’t resist! LOL)
But then there was the task of including a palindrome. Hmmm… When I was looking up palindromes I also found Semordnilaps. Besides being Palindromes spelled backwards, they are words that have a different meaning when spelled backwards like step/pets…
And idea popped in my head. Imps.
I have no idea how I made that leap, but it was fun once I started! I hope you enjoy Take Your Imp to Work Day! 🙂
Thanks for reading!
Lisa
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Take Your Imp to Work Day – By Lisa Kessler
“Come on, Greed! Keep up with Mommy. We don’t want to be late.” Greed is my last imp to leave the nest. He had to run to keep up with me, but he’s used to it. He’s very short, even for an imp. But what he lacks in height, he makes up for in his swirling blue eyes, like a tempest.
When we reached the storm drain on the corner of 18th and Vine, I checked for traffic and then reached my talon through the opening and pulled the cast iron lid open. Little Greed hopped inside and I quickly followed. We waddled through the dark maze of sewers until we reached the ladders under 13th Street.
“This is it little one,” I whispered, nudging him to jump down into the darkness.
The splash echoed through the empty tunnels as we landed in a puddle in front of a rusted door that read “Authorized Personnel Only”. Quickly I gave the secret knock and then we waited.
“It’s stinky down here, Mama,” Greed whispered. “I like it.”
I took a deep breath, pulling in the sweet stench of sulfur and rotten eggs as I ruffled his green tuft of hair. “It smells even better after a hot summer rain.”
The door creaked open and we hurried inside.
“Welcome to my working week,” I said before quickly introducing my little one to my coworkers. While he met the other little imp boys and girls who were also visiting on Take Your Imp to Work Day, I went to my cubby hole and pulled out my assignment list. It was going to be a mischievous day. Perfect.
The first stop was going to be the local school bus depot. We had to get there first thing before the bus drivers arrived. The yellow buses were all parked in straight rows. This was going to be wicked fun.
“Greed, let me see your claws.”
He held up his pudgy imp hand for inspection. I tisked and shook my head as I released his hand. “What did I tell you about your claws?”
He mussed his toes in the dirt. “Always sharpen them every night.”
“Exactly.” I handed him a file from my tool kit. “Now get busy or you won’t be able to help Mama.”
While he filed, I went to work on the first bus, popping my claw through the left front tire. Hisssssss. I love that sound! I glanced back at my boy and smiled. His little black tongue was poking out the side of his mouth as he concentrated on the task at hand.
“Are they sharp yet?”
“I think so.” He handed me my file and held up his hand again. I touched the tips of his claws and grinned.
“Good job! Do you want to help?” He nodded his head with an eager grin. “Ok you get to run under each bus and poke your claw through the spare tire underneath the bus.”
His eyes widened, the blue storms swirled faster as he grinned, and I could see every pointy tooth. “Really Mama? I get to pop the tires too?”
“Yes.” I turned him toward the back of the bus and gave his little rear a nudge. “Go make Mama proud.”
He sprinted off and within seconds I heard the hiss from the back of the bus. I couldn’t hide my proud smile. Greed was going to make our imp family proud one day. We worked quickly, and after we had thirty buses disabled, I grabbed Greed’s hand and we scurried off to the nearest storm drain.
“That was fun, Mama,” he said once we were safely inside the sewer. “Where are we going now?”
“Next stop is the stadium.”
“Is it far from here?”
“Far enough.”
“Mama,” he whined. “That’s not an answer.”
“No whining, little imp.” I snatched his hand in mine and tugged him along with me. “It doesn’t matter how far it is, we’re going there just the same.”
He groaned, but thankfully the whining stopped. There’s nothing worse than a whiney imp. The tunnel got more slippery as we made our way closer to the coast. Moss grew thick and the stench was ripe. Imp paradise. Greed squealed with delight as he splashed through the waste water and sang his imp school song about how kayak, level and race car are all palindromes. When he lost interest in the song, he chased bugs and munched garbage until we reached our final destination.
“This is it,” I said as I started climbing the ladder to the surface.
Once we were topside and the storm drain cover was back in place, we scurried into the empty halls of the stadium and down the stairs until we reached the player locker rooms. The odor here was rank with sweat and mildew. Not quite as delicious as the sewer, but we enjoyed it just the same.
“What are we gonna do here, Mama?”
“This is where the baseball players get ready. They’re a superstitious bunch, so this will be fun.”
He grinned and rubbed his pudgy clawed hands together in anticipation while I opened my bag and withdrew a lipstick. Greed saw my weapon of choice and grimaced, raising a little green eyebrow.
“You’re gonna scare ‘em with make-up?”
I chuckled as I shimmied up onto the bench across from the sinks. “Just wait and see. While I’m busy with this, you can get the itching powder out of my bag and sprinkle it in the bottles of vinegar on the shelf over there.”
The storms swirled in Greed’s eyes as he hurried over to dig through my bag. “Why are we putting itching powder in the vinegar?”
“Because they use the vinegar to help treat athlete’s foot. It’s an old human remedy to make their feet stop itching.”
“I like scratching my feet.”
“I know. But humans don’t. They’re strange.”
“So this powder will make them itch even worse when they stick their fungus feet in it, right?”
“Exactly.” I smiled over at him as he eagerly dumped itching powder into the vinegar bottles. He was a good imp.
I turned to face the white tile wall again. The red lipstick looked like blood as I carefully etched each letter to look like crazed fan scrawling. There was an art to it, but that’s why the Imp Corps sent me. Crazed fanatical writing was one of my specialties.
I hopped down from the bench just as Greed scampered back over.
“All done Mama. I sprinkled all sorts of powder into the vinegar bottles and shook them up good.” I mussed his hair, inspecting my own work as he went on. “They should be real itchy when they… Hey Mama, why’d you write ‘live lived’? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Look in the mirror.”
He turned around and grinned when he saw the reflection. “Evil devil. That’s nice Mama.”
“It’s not ‘Redrum’ but it should give them a little chill, and mixed with the attacks of itchy feet, some of them will be talking curses by the end of the night.”
“You’re good at this job Mama!”
I took his hand. “You’ll be good at it too one day Greed. Our family has a long heritage with the Imp Corps. Someday I bet you’ll be winning the Imp Novice award just like your brothers.”
“Anguish and Dread won awards?”
“They sure did.” I nodded, carefully packing up our supplies so the humans would find no trace of the imps among them. With one last whiff of the ripe aroma, we headed back to the sewer. I took my little imp’s hand as we sloshed through the rodent infested catacombs under the city.
He looked up at me with his stormy eyes and toothy grin. “This was the best day ever. Thanks for taking me to work with you.”
My heart melted as I smiled down at my precious imp. “Thanks for helping me make trouble today.”
He grinned and broke free from my hand, skipping ahead through the sludge.
Little imps grow up so fast.