New Years Bull#$@%
[The BOSS and his UNDERLING sit in their office.]
BOSS
Are you on MSN?
UNDERLING
Absolutely not.
[The UNDERLING is on MSN. She receives yet another “Happy 牛 Year!” pun from yet another one of her foreign friends.]
UNDERLING
Oh, dammit.
BOSS
What is it?
UNDERLING
Umm. My computer had a problem.
BOSS
You aren’t on MSN, are you?
UNDERLING
Absolutely not.
BOSS
So when is the giant ox going to arrive out front?
UNDERLING
[typing away vigorously]
What?
BOSS
The giant ox. You know, out front.
UNDERLING
Oh yeah. That’s not going to be here for another two days.
BOSS
Why the delay?
UNDERLING
Well, it seems that we got our order in too late. They were out of gold oxen.
BOSS
I don’t believe it.
UNDERLING
Well, they did have one that looked like it was taking a deuce. It was a special order for a fertilizer company in Qingdao, but they cancelled it. I thought you didn’t want that out front.
BOSS
Good thinking. Okay. But why so long? I mean, can’t they just whip one up overnight? They have a mold or whatever, right?
UNDERLING
You’d think, right? But it turns out that the owner of the bull shop had a fight with his wife.
BOSS
What does that have to do with anything?
UNDERLING
Well, he was having an affair with this girl who wears a lot of purple.
BOSS
Why purple?
UNDERLING
I have no idea. Ask her!
BOSS
Okay, then what?
UNDERLING
His wife dumped purple paint all over the one that was supposed to arrive today. So they tried to repaint it, but the paint kept peeling back to purple. So are going to have to strip the paint and start over again.
BOSS
Couldn’t we buy an old one? One from 12 years ago?
UNDERLING
I called around, but the only one I could find was in front of a slaugherhouse. It would take at least 3 more days to fumagate it.
BOSS
[sighs]
Okay.
[The UNDERLING begins to type away. She laughs.]
BOSS
What’s so funny?
UNDERLING
Umm. Nothing. Oh the year of the ox! Haha!
BOSS
You are on MSN, aren’t you?
UNDERLING
Absolutely not.