Sowed and Bagged

The summer was peak season and it always came with the need for a few more hands on deck for the team at Sketchy Bangs, a small special effects / entertainment company that mostly did fireworks and fancy magic and balloon shows for kids birthday parties. Sketchy Bangs has been in business for just over a decade now and would be considered a successful small business by most means of measurement. The owner, Wayne Sketchy, never dreamt that he would be a business owner of any kind, but with some fortunate good will bestowed onto him as a 20 year old he was able to build a company, and in turn keep himself out of trouble. The only consistency that Wayne seemed to exude from puberty to young adulthood was a penchant for causing damage using devices that could only be categorised as Pyrotechnic and the consequences always being someone else's property. Wayne was given his last warning by local law enforcement and their accompanying fire department officials after there was a sudden, unexplainable forest fire that had gotten out of control and forced a few local farmers out of their homes while also having their crop rotations completely lost for a season or two. The blaze had made the local and regional news outlets and the following investigation into the genesis of the now famous forest fire was considered to have been a few errant Molotov cocktails. The tosser, a very inebriated and from all accounts, careless Wayne Sketchy. They were thrown from a moving vehicle and had missed by a Ford F150 length their intended targets and landed errantly against an outhouse building that was used by the party goers to fornicate and get high in.

The building was fortunately empty when Wayne's misses shattered and ignited against the very old and very dried out framing. However, before it came to the demise typical of a fire of that magnitude, the flames had managed to spread to a smaller building that was mostly used as an outhouse. That simple shit shack then then passed the carnage onto a of discarded firewood, and blah blah blah Bob's your uncle, and onwards this alcohol and cigarette lighter initiated set of flames would spread from trees to forest and eventually to crops and fields smothering anything in its path. The damage of the much publicized and haphazardly engaged forest fire totalled into the tens of millions before it was finally beaten into a smouldering submission by a special group of firefighters flown in from the West Coast. Wayne was eventually pegged as the somewhat exaggeratedly accidental arsonist. The business idea was a coordinated attempt by the powers that be to make Wayne accept responsibility publicly, while avoiding the need for any conversations about criminal responsibility. The company was to perform a few charity events per season as a service to the community.

Wayne hired his usual sidekicks to join this newly formed and surely destined for fame and fortune 500 status. Scout Peeples was hired to do balloon animals and run the occasional petting farm. Biff Grifter was the magic man whose arsenal of tricks consisted of a knack for some basic sleight of hand and some crowd pleasing card tricks. Wayne's best friend, Brenda Bullnosey, was already trained in taking care of these 3 over-drinking handfuls after being group babysitter during 4 years of high school, so she naturally assumed the role of Project Coordinator, which realistically resulted in Brenda running the company. While Wayne was the owner on paper and in person, nothing got done unless Brenda was aware of its need and the results were always managed by her.

As the world came out of the pandemic, there existed a need for parents to kick off the return to normalcy by embracing the "Go Big or Go home" approach to planning birthdays and other milestone driven events that needed to be celebrated. Each weekend seemed to be another attempt to one up the Joneses and their "OH We Can Do Better Than That" lame attempt at an Art Party. Unless that art party ends up in slime being made, most of the typical party themes and destinations have been done. Thus, birthing the need to hire a company like Sketchy Bangs. While never wanting to disappoint, and with an ego bigger than the swath of damage he created by negligently starting that historical forest fire, Wayne always jumped on opportunities that required the customer to pay extra. These special circumstances usually went with a discussion where the customer was told that Sketchy Bangs needed carte blanche oversight, and the customer would need to be blessed with the virtue of fortitude and be able to allow creative freedom to be bestowed upon the Sketchy Bangs team autonomously. Sometimes these creative drifts from the sanity and safety of the typical and tried so true methods required another Sketchy Bangs team member. This had come up as a need on 4 projects in a row now and the young lady that had shown up and done a wonderful job in each of the first few appearances was Smiley Spokenfork. Much to the chagrin of Brenda, Smiley was not only a hit with the customers and party-goers, but the boys on the Sketchy Bangs Squad were all very noticeably enamoured by the newest green-eyed addition to the team. While preparing and planning for what was becoming the biggest event in company history, she was struck with pangs of jealousy as she saw each of her "boys" fall over themselves, and each other, trying to capture and keep Smiley's attention.

From Smiley's perspective, her new job was exactly what she needed in her life. The added bonus of having these 3 grown men doting on her like this was the reason why she found herself smiling again. Today, however, the attention from the boys also comes with the help they supply her in putting together parts of a fireworks and explosion show for this important upcoming event. Brenda had requested Smiley organize the sequencing needed for the pyrotechnic output, and Smiley had been overwhelmed as she read through Brenda's very detailed and overly technical email. Sent early that morning, Brenda had purposely made sure to make the directions more than difficult for a new team member. Her outline described the unreasonable amount of effort that she needed from Smiley that day. Thankfully, Smiley thought to herself, these boys are doing everything for me and all I need to do is feign the flirtations back. Smiley was comfortable in this position. Her life was easier when she used her god given abilities as a woman to control the men in her life in ways that served her moves forward, while preying on their consistently sexually motivated male instincts that seemed to make them all attracted to Smiley by default. This same ability is what Brenda and many other similar women, by nature are programmed to hate Smiley without even knowing her or trying to. This catty and malicious undertone would be laced throughout whatever relationship these two women ever had to support based on their paths through life.

The preparation for Sketchy Bangs biggest and most lucrative paid event went late into the night preceding the big day. The entire team worked together ensuring that all the necessary equipment had been run through the proper maintenance and testing processes and later packed away in an organized fashion to support a quick and efficiently organized setup on site. Throughout the course of this extended work day, Wayne had been his usual overbearing and controlling self and had organized the day in a way that kept Smiley working mostly alongside only Wayne, himself. Over the last few days, he had begun playing what he felt was a cute and flirty game with Smiley that included leaving little love notes in places that she would find while she was sent by Wayne to fetch equipment or perform other seemingly necessary tasks. The two of them enjoyed playing "Go-pher" this, and "Go-fer" that, and together they made sure Smiley found each note that he had penned for her. The notes had little scribbles like "You are such a good person!", "I am so lucky to have met you!", and "Prettiest girl in the world".

As the late night turned into very early morning, some of the team members headed home to try and squeeze at least a few hours of sleep in before returning to get the event started. Wayne and Smiley ensured that everyone else had left before they quickly snuck into one of the storage lockers and went through each of the notes and shared a very delicate and emotion filled first kiss. After the lip lock an almost obligatory and somewhat awkwardly tried follow up embrace, Wayne whispered to Smiley that they should continue to keep this budding relationship a private matter, reasoning that the working relationship amongst the entire team would be unnecessarily affected negatively with this very special news being made public. She nodded her head with understanding and they shared one more soft peck of a kiss while Wayne laced a single Marigold flower into Smiley's hair behind her ear. They both then headed off to the parking lot and into their vehicles to head home.

Smiley made it to the end of what should have been her driveway when a sudden realization stopped her progress abruptly. She was pulling into the driveway of her boyfriend's place and not her own. What surprised her most was her total disregard of her current relationship over the last couple days of fun, kisses and tons of flirtations with all the boys at her new job, but mostly the progress of the one with Wayne. Suddenly, just as quickly as she had begun to daydream and replay some of the steamiest moments from the week of work, she hears a tapping on her driver's side window that startles her. That first very happy set of memories turned vehemently into guilt as she looks out the window and sees her boyfriend, Chad Bradstone, staring back at her through her car window. "Roll down the window", she can see him mouthing to her. Having been startled, Smiley was not quick to react to this simple request. Chad decided he would walk around to the passenger side of her car to sit inside with his girlfriend instead. He opens the door and swings inside to sit down and feels something is in the seat and reaches underneath himself to move the item. Smiley looks on in horror as Chad shows her a brown paper bag that he has just pulled out from underneath his seat. His curiosity being peaked at what this bag holds, he peels back the folded opening and reaches inside. Chad quickly realizes that the contents are not something he was meant to see, and his focus shifts to Smiley and her bewildered face. "What are these"? Chad questions. He continues to pull out a handful of sticky notes that have little sayings on them. Smiley quickly tries to snatch the bag away from him. Chad evades the attempt and exits the vehicle. "Smiley, who are you trading these notes with?". She bursts into tears and utters meekly "Those are not for you! Chad, please do not look any further at that bag or what is inside it. Those are not for you!"

Without a hesitation, Chad rips open the bag and the entire note collection of a new romance fueled week spills onto the ground. Sweet nothings and flirtatious banter clad post-it notes shared between his girlfriend of 3 years and some unknown suitor now litter the end of his driveway. At first, he is overwhelmed by a sense of anger, which is quickly subsided with a terrible bout of grief. Before he could even mutter a sound... His front door opens and down the steps comes Smiley's older sister.