Defective

 Joe Coins loathed Mia Hansda, the business secretary at Sunday Limited. 

Joe kept conversations as brief as possible, scrupulously avoiding making eye contact or inadvertently staring at the woman’s deformed body. 

She had even considered taking a job with another dealership to be rid of the wretched woman. For her part, the only time Mia paid Joe even the slightest mind was when she did something wrong, which was why she was presently standing in the repair bay wearing an evil expression. “Wrong calculations on this form.” Mia waved a three-part invoice truculently in the air. In her late twenties, the business secretary exuded no joie de vivre. She lurched about Sunday Ltd. with a profound limp, her body pitching forward in a herky-jerky manner as though she were about to take a pratfall and end up on her keister from one humorless moment to the next. 

She wasn’t exactly ugly. Rather, she was one of those infuriatingly nondescript types who, despite her infirmity, might have been reasonably attractive if, once in a blue moon, she smiled or cracked a joke. The operative term here was ‘might have been’. 

Meanwhile, the repair manager from the showroom floor who was waiting at the glass door of the cabin approached. “What a clod!” Joe muttered as Mia retreated back to the comfort of the heated showroom. “That piece of a joke treats mechanics like garbage.” “She ain’t so bad.” the man assumed a mollifying tone.  “No worse than the last few goofballs in her position.” He had a point. The previous secretary arrived late most days and couldn’t file properly. The middle-aged who preceded her was a menopausal hypochondriac with a drinking problem; she lasted a sum total of five weeks before filing a disability claim. If nothing else, the grim-faced Mia Hansda was a sheer workaholic. All customer records had to be properly indexed. She retyped an entire file and, using a desktop publishing program, revamped several of Sunday ltd.’s contact and feedback forms. 

A rattling sound from the room next cut their conversation. The rusty silencer fell away from the undercarriage of a car. “Defective stuff are being repaired. Relax everyone .” 

 By this time Joe's brain had reached the temperature of the softened bolts scattered about under the hydraulic lift. He waved a stubby finger in the air listlessly. “oh such a sadistic person !” 

“I assume that's a bit of a stretch,” the man chuckled. “Mia’s just…well, that's a secret!” the man winked and went back into the adjoint room to look into the defects that were being worked upon.