The trials and tribulations of Leslie Arzt (New World)

[T@rget]

   ?I?m telling ya the lift for the incinerator is down.?  Came the voice over the walkie.
   Minutes later the  walkie spoke up again, ?Bug, there?s a spill out side of one of the labs.  The cleaning supplies have not arrived yet.  We are all out.?
   Then again, ?There was a small fire in the kitchens.  The firefighters put it out but of course the left mess for us.?

   Leslie Arzt sat on the edge of his bed and considers turning off his walkie.  ?From now on I?m going to wait to turn on this darn thing till AFTER I have my coffee,? Leslie thought to himself.  He walks over to small coffee pot in his room.  He takes a large belt of the dark, hot, liquid.  The rest he pours into his travel cup.
   To no one but himself he says, ?Get a larger coffee pot ant travel mug.  Hmm? Well at least a larger mug.?

   He knows his first stop should be the lift but the fire in the kitchens gave him an excuse to get some sugar.  The people that got no response on the walkie-talkie from Leslie sought him out.  Just one look and most of those people could tell that Leslie has not had his coffee yet.  Leslie has an even temperament so he does not really know why every mostly back off in the morning.  But then again he does not really go out of his way to correct others misconceptions of him in the morning.

   That is every one but this noisy cricket that is following him talking incessantly in his ear, ?So what are you going to do about it?  I have to have my kitchen clean.?
   ?Are you the head chief??  Asks Leslie.
   ?No but?
   Leslie cut him off saying, ?I have men working on it right now.  And as you can tell I am heading there now to see how the clean up is going.  The ship has not come to re stock our cleaning supplies.  But I am sure that good old fashion elbow grease will get the job done.  You could man a bucket and brush.  That would make the cleaning go that much faster.?

   The Cricket leaves with a satisfying just-bit-a-lemon look.  Leslie smiles, not to broadly, as he leaves.  When he gets to the part of the kitchen that was the site of the fire he notices that the sprinklers over the deep fryer did not work.  That explains why those firefighters had to muck up the place so much.  No that he is here he can tell that he is not really needed.  Walter is overseeing the clean up.  And true enough its just coming down to getting in there and doing it.

   ?So,? Leslie asks, knowing the answer, ?Anything I can help with Walt??
   ?Nawp.  I got it Bug.?
   He nodded.  Walt is a good man.  Before he leaves he drains some of his hot coffee down to his gullet and fills the space with sugar.  With a sigh he heads off to the waste-to energy plant.

[T@rget]

   He considers walking to the plant.  It will take a while to get there if he does that maybe, just maybe, some one will fix that stupid lift.  He shakes is head with a dour look on his face; ?Fat chance?.  Instead he went to get the cart he always uses.  And as a second thought he loads a toolbox in the back of the cart.

   ?So what is it this time??
   ?We can?t get the lift to lower any farther than that.?  It?s stuck halfway down.
   ?Any one think too bring a tool box??  The dumbstruck look on those assembled was all the answer he needed.  To his walkie he says, ?Walt come back.?
   ?This is Walt.?
   ?Take a team and a loader to the docks.  See if the cleaning supplies have come in.?
   ?Right Bug will do.?

   Leslie sets the toolbox on the edge.  He hops down to the lift stuck in the ? position.  It?s a good thing that bin is not on the lift because he would have no room.  He then shimmies to the edge of the lift platform so he can work his way under this lift.

   ?Henry,? he yells, ?go and get some thing to brace this damnable thing?  I don?t feel like becoming a pancake.?  When Henry leaves Leslie grumbles, ?Oh the darn scientists get the state of the art but what do I get?  Something built for the lowest bidder.?

   Henry?s voice came from above him, ?What was that Bug??
   ?Nothing.  Get those skinny little cheeks down here.?
   ?What?  I? no, I?m going to??
   ?You are going to get down here right now Henry.  I am going to show you how to fix this blasted thing.?  He finished in a low volume so no one else could hear him, ?So you can be in charge of this and I can get to the million of other things.?

   The work took two hours to complete.  Henry could take order but had no imagination, for that matter not much ambition.  Leslie considered getting Walter to be in charge of this but he is already in charge of other things.  This was something that Leslie thought would build a work ethic in Henry so he left to it.

   Leslie left the toolbox and hoped in his cart to get to the 999,999 other things he need to take care of.

[T@rget]

   ?Oh ho,? came Walter?s voice over the radio, ?Hey Bug, guess what came on the boat??
   ?I don?t have time for games I am trying to clean up that spill outside the labs.  And to make it worse I don?t have the right chemicals.?
   ?Well the cleaning supplies have come in.  But that?s now what I was talking about; your new set of insects has come in.?

   Leslie clapped his hands and said, ?Alright!  Could you bring it to my room?  Just set it on my bed, I?ll take care them later.  Make sure to send some one with the cleaning supplies to the labs.?

   Since some one was coming with right things Leslie stopped his pointless cleaning.  He took out a pack of cigarettes and a cheap Zippo.  He really did not know exactly what that spill was and as he puffed on the coffin nail he realized that the spill might be flammable.  He shrugged it off.

   When the stuff showed up he set to work.  He would have to check the sheet to see if it was safe to incinerate it.  With the right material the spill took a very short time to finally get cleaned up.

   Ever since he was a child he as been fascinated by insects, he spent many hours in libraries looking up what this bug was or what that one was.  As he went about his day his thoughts wandered to his new group of specimens.  He has friend, entomologist, on the main land.  He keeps sending Leslie interesting species staked by a long pin.