High Noon

Ellie Spencer Thacker, a force of nature with a shaved head and a blown-out tribal tattoo on her left hand, wore her ‘High-Noon’ T-shirt to work today. Kelsey noticed because she was the only co-worker that didn’t make fun of her Hello Kitty car seat covers.

The T-shirt had a cartoon purple pineapple wearing a poncho a-la Clint Eastwood with blood-shot eyes holding a big blunt.

It was definitely not work-place appropriate, even for a call center that wasn’t client facing. Yet, their manager had already dozed off at her desk at the late hour of 10:02am. The execs wanted to can their manager, Gwen, but she apparently ‘narcolepsy’ was listed as a disability and they didn’t want an ADA lawsuit on their hands.

“Mornin’ sunshine.” Ellie drawled, passing behind Kelsey’s chair to sit at the cubicle next to hers.

She smelled like grape dutches and patchouli.

It made Kelsey’s day.

“Hey Ellie.” Kelsey answered as Ellie tore off her heart-shaped Exxon gas station sunglasses and tossed them at her cubicle. They clattered against her keyboard, waking up her dormant computer to the log-in screen.

Ellie used to go by El, but then that Stranger Things TV show came out, and apparently a character in the show who was also named ‘El’ had a shaved head. Kelsey had never watched the show, she preferred her shows more vapid, like Love Island, but this ‘El’ character apparently had some mental issues.

And well, Ellie Spencer Thacker took no one’s shit.

Whenever one of their co-workers called Ellie, El with a knowing Stranger Things reference, she’d bump them up in the incoming call queue so they’d get the next angry customer. 

“Hows it going Kel? Finally break up with that loser yet?” Ellie asked clacking her fingers rapidly on her budget keyboard to log into the call queue before she was counted as late. 

“Actually. I did. We even did the dreaded ‘stuff-exchange’. I never want to see another frisbee or ‘Las Vegas Raiders’ T-shirt in my apartment ever again.” Kelsey replied, noticing her place in the call queue, jump up one so she’d be the next to get an incoming call.

Kelsey noticed how she had stunned the usually witty Ellie into silence and smirked.

“Holy shit, good for you. We gotta celebrate today.” The woman with the shaved head next to her waggled her hand in the ‘hang loose’ motion.

Kelsey opened her mouth to answer with a ‘I’d love to please let’s do something like get blitzed at an Applebees during our lunch break.’, but her headset dinged with an incoming call and a customer’s information populated across both monitors.

“Thank you for calling Americana Bank and Credit, this is Kelsey, how may I help you?” Kelsey upped the pitch of her voice and slowed her cadence to her ‘customer service’ voice.

Mrs Sharon Tart with a credit line of three thousand dollars, and an overdue balance of five thousand two hundred and ninety-seven dollars answered by shrieking like a banshee into her headset.

Typical.

After explaining to Mrs Sharon Tart that no, Americana Bank and Credit could not force her to pay her bill, but the charges would remain on her account, Kelsey turned to Ellie who was explaining to Senor Juan Gonzalez in fluent Spanish what the charge for ‘OF’ was to.

Only Fans. 

No, a criminal did not steal your credit card number to charge 25.00 to OnlyFans.com, and yes you’re responsible for the charge.

Kelsey didn’t wish working in a banking call center on her worst enemy, not even her mooching ex Casey.

She shouldn’t have dated him based on his name alone. Casey and Kelsey? How did she not see how gross that was?

“Kelsey, you’ve really gotten your numbers up.”