Woe Is Me!

Posted on Tue Mar 3rd, 2015 @ 12:15pm by Ensign Corrine Steiner
Edited on on Thu Mar 5th, 2015 @ 2:49pm

Mission: Ill Tidings
Location: A lonely stairwell *sniffle*
Timeline: Early afternoon

[ON]

The young Ferengi entrepreneur sat alone in an unused stairwell. His depressed head hung low in disgrace as he stared at his hand computer projections. The numbers didn't lie. He had sacrificed time and money for bribery and gotten nothing, zero return on his investment. This was far, far worse than a sexual misfire. "I don't believe it! This has never happened to me before!" Adding insult to injury, he still felt nausea from his Aqua Velvet mouth rinse. Invoking the ancient computer search, Google revealed his mistake. "Well no wonder!" He sighed, "At least I won't ever have to go through that again!" The poor little fellow's head tipped to one side as he wallowed in self pity. "I'm a failure! I'm... I'm..."
His lip quivered, "I'm unprofitable!" Choople wept.

A while later, a life support technician came through with a janitor's hover cart. "Hey, little man! What's wrong?"

"Oh, nothing. Just forget about me. Don't damage your employee productivity statistics by wasting time with me."

The man sat down next to him. "Hey! Don't talk like that! Tell me what's wrong."

Ferengi are, along with Earth's cockroaches, among the galaxy's most resilient survivors. Sensing that he had this janitor on the sympathy hook, Choople lost no time in pouring out his highly embellished woes.

"You mean to tell me that all you wanted to do was talk with the Ops queen?"

Big sigh, "Yes. Woe is me."

"Well heck, son! Why don't I just go talk to her?"

Choople was astonished, "You can't do that! I mean, not to demean your station in life, but she's upper management, and you're a bottom tier employee! You have to make schmooze appointments with supervisors, who have to schmooze appointments with their supervisors!"

Not taking offense, the janitor waved it off, "Oh, no no no! I met the lady when I set up her quarters. She's down to earth good folk!"

Choople cautiously applied the false modesty, "Oh, I couldn't ask you to do that!" His curiosity then bettered him. He interlaced his fingers and asked with excited eyes, "When?"

The janitor stood up, "Why, I'll go do it right now! Soon as I see she has a free moment, it's done!"

With all due drama, the little Ferengi lavished thanks and promises of discount coupons upon his benefactor. He then requested, "Just... please don't arrange a meeting in The Dive. I went back there, and people keep paying the bartender to deliver me shot glasses of Aqua Velvet."

"You got it!" After the man left, everything was now different. He had fallen in disgrace, but now rose an economic conqueror. He could now sneer at the bribery costs which had tormented him so badly earlier. "HMH!"

[OFF]

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Choople {by Corrine Steiner}
Starbase 332
Pegasus Fleet