My first thought this morning was, ‘How the hell am I gonna make that deadline?’

I still had to print a gazillion pages, amend a million little bits before printing and remember to file everything in the right order before sending off the package at noon.

I made lists on my way to work.  I sighed sighs that should not have been half as deep at 08.00.

At the office, the elevator door opened and I gasped.  All my elves were already there; printing, filing, amending, and puffing.

We worked like ants before the first winter blizzards hit.  We hustled and huffed and we puffed. My name was called out so often that I started to hate the sound of it.

From an objective point of view, it is interesting to note how different people react to stress.  Some curse so loud that you can hear St Peter crossing their name off his list; or Santa, depends what you believe in.  Others remain calm, lucid, placid, making the cursey ones curse even louder. Others, or just one particular person, just runs around the office like a headless chicken; remembers last minute stuff with loud, frequent gasps and then runs faster, screaming the thing just remembered. And yes, that one particular person would be me.  I was hoarse by 10.30.

At 12.00 the courier guy came, the package was packaged, the signature was given and he was off.

The office was in shambles.  Discarded papers lay everywhere.  Tape balls stuck to everything.  Smoke came out of the printing machine.  But we made the deadline and our sighs turned to one deep breath of relief.

 —

This was a truthful  narration of the day I just had and done for the Daily Prompt: First Light