It is a spring day, this April 7, 2026. It is a Tuesday and battle stations are being prepped in anticipation of Yancy’s visit tomorrow. He is due, it is scheduled. I have butted heads with Yancy and he was right and I was right but he refused to recognize my side of the story and appeared to resent my speaking up on my own behalf.
It’s simple really. At the fruit stand I receive requests alongside Janis and Kimberly and of course, Yancy. There is a two hour window to fill these requests but when nothing else is going on, you might as well fill those requests. Now last week, I had a problem with hot links in my emails and so I copied a response from Kimberly or Janis and pasted it as my own.
In doing that, I overlooked a date that was in the copied text that was not the requested time. The email went out but at the bottom of the email was another line that I had copied from my entry in the system, Monday Apr 6 8AM – Friday Apr 10 11:59PM which seems like it was not read by the person who requested and was confused.
This is where Yancy stepped in, annoyed at this mistake, saying that I had rushed through and did not read the request carefully. I did read the request carefully, it was the response that was not read carefully, having taken it for granted that the copied text was the same as it had been previously.
Yes there was a mistake, and there was the correct answer at the end but the correct answer was unread. Yancy stepped in and set this bloke up for today’s request and I took it upon myself to answer the request for the rest of the days of the week. I am certain this issue is not settled and it’s an irritant for me at this moment.
I spoke with Marcus about it and he recommended emailing the counselor that set me up at the fruit stand, knowing that Yancy is doing exactly that, contacting my counselor to complain. With Marcus looking out for me, I did just that.
So a feeling of apprehension hovers over my head. On top of that I was going to order a salad for lunch, but the menu changed since my last order leaving me wondering what shold I do. I do try to eat healthier but an $18.00 salad leaves one wanting. I am remeninded of when I was working for Barry McGarry and a salad was no more than $12.00, $14.00 with tip.
But that was then, this is now and Wendy’s looks affordable and appetizing. ANd it was affordable and appetizing. Not necessarily the healthiest but it was something. Before I went to pick up my food, I was working on a list of requests, numbering around 65 people. Halfway through I decided to get my food, thinking I would just pick it back up when I returned, only to have forgotten that the page would refresh and without me being there, all my work would be lost.
And it was lost. I worked through my lunch, adding and checking names and times, and after an hour or so of doing that, I could not make sense of it anymore. I should have taken an actual break; I should have stepped away from the desk for my lunch hour, but I was trying to prove that I am a team player.
Kimberly was out today. Lex Luthor will never return. Janis and Yancy held down the fort at the main fruit stand and I felt I should do more than my fair share, but at the cost of my sanity. I came home and had the idea, a hope that Yancy will let today be today and tomorrow be a new day.
I guess I will find out tomorrow morning, 8:00 AM.
the Google Gemini rewrite as a Noel Coward essay
Gemini said
It is April 7, 2026—a Tuesday of quite extraordinary tedium—and I find myself girding my loins for the arrival of Yancy tomorrow. Battle stations are being prepped, as they say in those noisy films, though the weaponry at my disposal is little more than a polished resume and a brittle sense of irony.
Yancy and I have had our little “clash of the titans,” if one can use such a grandiloquent phrase for a spat over a fruit stand. He was right, I was right, and yet we both managed to be quite spectacularly wrong about each other. He possesses that most tiresome of traits: a refusal to acknowledge that anyone else might have a perspective, coupled with a simmering resentment that I should have the audacity to speak up in my own defense. It’s all very High Noon, only with more citrus.
The crux of the matter is delightfully banal. At the fruit stand, alongside the ever-patient Janis and Kimberly, we are besieged by requests. One has a two-hour window to dispatch them, but if the world is quiet, one might as well be efficient—if only to avoid the crushing weight of one’s own thoughts.
Last week, my emails developed a distressing allergy to “hot links.” In a moment of pragmatism that I now see was sheer folly, I copied a response from one of the ladies and pasted it as my own. In doing so, I overlooked a date buried in the text like a small, malicious landmine. I did include the correct information at the bottom, but alas, the recipient—clearly a person of limited investigative stamina—became utterly confused.
Yancy, swooping in with the grace of a particularly irritable vulture, accused me of rushing. I had, in fact, read the request with the devotion of a scholar; it was merely the response I had failed to proofread, having taken it for granted that Kimberly’s prose was as infallible as the Bible. A mistake was made, certainly, but Yancy’s insistence on making it a moral failing is quite frankly exhausting. I have spent the rest of the week answering every request in sight, a penance of the most dreary variety, yet the air remains thick with unresolved irritation.
I consulted Marcus, who is always a bracing tonic in a crisis. He suggested I bypass the drama and contact the counselor directly, knowing full well that Yancy is likely at this very moment composing a poison-pen letter about my clerical inadequacies.
And so, a cloud of apprehension hovers. To make matters worse, I had a sudden, fleeting desire for a salad. But the menu has changed, and they now have the effrontery to charge eighteen dollars for a handful of arugula and a dream. I remember the golden age—back when I worked for Barry McGarry—when a salad was a civilized twelve dollars, or fourteen if one felt particularly philanthropic toward the waiter.
In a fit of pique, I turned to Wendy’s. It was affordable, it was appetizing, and it was entirely devoid of nutritional merit—but it was, at the very least, a rebellion.
Before I fled to fetch my square-shaped beef, I was mid-way through a list of some sixty-five souls. In a fit of technological optimism that I shall never repeat, I left my desk, only to return and find that the page had “refreshed” itself. All my work, vanished into the digital ether. I spent my lunch hour in a frantic, perspiring blur, checking names and times until my eyes crossed. I should have taken a proper break; I should have drifted away to a park bench and contemplated the vanity of human wishes. Instead, I stayed to prove I was a “team player”—that most tragic of modern roles.
Kimberly is away, the elusive Lex Luthor is a ghost of the past, and Janis and Yancy remain at the fort. I have returned home with a hope—slight, trembling, and likely misplaced—that Yancy will allow today to be today, and tomorrow to be a fresh curtain-rise.
We shall see. Eight o’clock tomorrow morning. I’ll bring my own tea; God knows the atmosphere will be cold enough.