This story is for the #kbcAPinchOfMagic contest!
The only two good things that came out of this disaster was me getting a much better job, and my son becoming famous. The latter isn’t very beneficial. Let me give you some context.
It was Bring-Your-Kid to work day. I worked at the main shampoo factory owned by the hygiene company Swan. I’m in charge of mixing all the components together. At least they haven’t automated that part yet…
Anyways, I had brought my mischievous son to the factory. On our way to my workplace, I had a tough job keeping him away from the glass that separated us from the machinery. Once we reached my place of work, I showed him what I did. For once he seemed fascinated with what I was doing. I hoped that fascination would last. Suddenly, the Head of Operations in the factory called my name out and said, “Come to my office now!”
“But what about my son? I can’t leave him alone!”
“Don’t worry about him, uh… Miles! Miles doesn’t have any children! Miles! Will you look after Forrester’s son for a bit until he’s back?”
“Sure!” Miles replied.
I followed my boss into his office. I knew that this had to be something very good, or bad, since he rarely went into his office. “So, Forrester. You are a very experienced worker. You’ve been working here for the last 11 years.”
“Yes sir.”
“See, an opening has come up in the sales department. Wanna guess what it is?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“Head of Sales.”
My eyes went wide. Where was this going? Surely that slot would be filled in by someone big in the sales department.
“O-Oh, wow. I suppose it will be filled rather quickly, won’t it?”
“See, Forrester, that’s where you come in. You’ve shown probably every single person in the whole factory, that you are persuasive, creative, and, I’d even say, almost as smart as me!”
This was a huge compliment coming from the boss; he thinks of himself as a great intellectual. (Who somehow got stuck working in a shampoo factory.)
But, there was something I had to do before that. I had just completed the formulation of a new shampoo and I had to come up with a name for it.
Meanwhile, (my son told me this part) Miles was on his phone. He was scrolling through his InstaGrab account when he heard a noise. Looking up, he noticed my son was missing. Suddenly scared, he started looking for him. Finally, he found him at his father’s workplace.
“Oh, there you are, kid. What’s wrong with you? Kids shouldn’t be such huge nuisances. Come on.”
My son turned around, innocently, and followed Miles, who hadn’t noticed the changed colour of the new shampoo mixture…
So, being one of the biggest hygiene companies in the world, Swan sold millions of bottles of the new shampoo which I had called “Silky Lengths (For men and women)”. But soon, something very peculiar occurred. People everywhere started growing hair to unimaginable lengths, and both men and women started growing beards and moustaches. A team of scientists found out that every single one of them had used the new shampoo which I had made, and I had mixed. My career was on the verge of collapse, when I remembered something.
“Miles, do you remember what my son was doing when I left him with you for the Sales promotion thing?” I asked him, sure I was on the right track.
“Um… yeah. I looked away for one second, and next thing I knew he had disappeared. I found him near your mixing station, I’m not sure before or after you poisoned it. Oh wait…”
“Yeah, I didn’t poison the mixture, my son did.”
That day at home I asked my son about it. While he was a very mischievous person, I knew he wouldn’t lie. Before the next part, I’d like to clarify something. I, while having a job, like to experiment with different chemicals to make things of different uses. That’s why we have a makeshift lab. Now, one of my experiments failed; I had created that mixture to cure warts: it didn’t do anything. But, one day, our pet dog Bruno got into the lab and spilled the mixture onto himself. He used to be a Labrador. Now he looks more like a bush.
So, back to the story. My son admitted that he mixed one of my experiments into the shampoo mixture. When I asked him what was written on the beaker that it was kept in, he said, “I think it was something like ‘Wurt Clerring (Feyled)’.”(Wart Clearing – Failed) That explained it, even though pronounced very badly.
Well, so, in the end, I got fired from Swan, only to be hired again, but this time by the R&D (Research and Development) Department. I now help research for new mixtures that could help humans hygienically. My son also got very famous and popular at school, for ‘showing those hairy adults up’.
Hopefully, my son won’t get me fired from this job…
