“How could it be this hard to find a guard?” Percy said, pounding the table. “Four interviews and nobody good enough for Little Hills. Haven’t we got any other leads?”
The rest of the HOA members shifted in their seats.
After a silence, Mona, the newest member, piped up. “Um, Per- Mr. President, sir,” she muttered, “I can’t speak for everyone, but I think we desperately need a guard soon, even a temporary one.” She looked furtively around the room for signs of agreement. “I mean, what if something were to happen? Just last week some giant trampled our vegetable garden. Mr. Hauser’s still hasn’t shown up since that -”
“Probably the same asshole who kicked over all my trees!” someone shouted.
“Maybe it was one of the athletes. Damn college town. We need to find a normal-sized guard before one of these idiot chicks trips and takes out an entire street with a volleyball.”
“Or their thighs.” (At that, Jack’s wife jabbed her elbow into his side.)
“You remember the last guard? That old guy whose magazine subscription cards kept falling out and blanketing the community center with giant Playboy adverts?”
“The mailman threw us a giant-size magazine! It cracked my roof! And yesterday there was another soccer ball!”
“Exactly!” Percy took control from the peanut gallery. ”And to top it all off, our insurance premiums keep going up!”
Louise, the secretary, sighed in irritation and shuffled the papers on her desk. “Well, if we just need somebody temporarily, there’s still this last resume. Might as well have written the damn thing in crayon, she doesn’t have any experience at all, but if all you want is some last-resort temp…”
“Maybe we aren’t offering enough?” someone interrupted.
Louise raised an eyebrow. “That’s definitely out of th-”
“You’re exactly right!” shouted Percy. “We need to pay more! Louise, raise the dues immediately!” He slammed his #1 TINY DAD mug down. “I could really use it,” he muttered, ”my car payments are killing me… Uh, Louise, come on, hustle, get her on the line!”
“Whatever you say, Your Majesty. We’ll just call her right now.” She reached for the phone. “And get this over with.”
The phone rang. And rang.
“Will this one know how to answer a phone, I wonder?”
“Shut up, it’s ringing.”
Click!
The voice over the phone was decidedly bubbly, Percy thought. “Heyyy! This is Stephanie? Um, is this the Little Hills Home-over’s Association?”
“Yes, this is us,” Percy responded, dropping his voice an octave as Louise rolled her eyes. “I mentioned I’d call about the job as night watchman. Can you tell me why you’re interested in the job?”
“Ohmigod, yeah! I think I’d be an aMAzing night watchman, first of all, I’m always up all night, and I barely sleep anyway, and honestly if anything went wrong it wouldn’t be that hard to fix? Like, I’m basically giant to you, right, and if someone is, um, bothering the community, I can yell super loud, and if there was a criminal I could basically just pick him up, and this cute guy at school says he’ll teach me karate-”
“Alright, alright,” Percy butted in. “Listen. Basically, we just need someone to keep things quiet around here. Man the gate for anyone coming in and out, keep things nice and peaceful. Maybe scare off some shitfaced frat boys occasionally. That kind of thing. That said, if any issues come up, we need someone who’s willing to handle it themselves. Is that something you could do?”
“Handle it myself, huh?” Stephanie bit her lip in thought.
“Yeah, well, you know. Try not to get the cops involved. Know what I mean, Stephanie?”
“Like, no cops...?”
“NO COPS!” Brittany snapped, grabbing the phone from Stephanie's hand. “If a bunch of cops drive up Sorority Row with everyone watching, and stop at our house, and come in, what the fuck do you think is going to happen?“
“What the hell!” Stephanie shrieked. “You want to let him get away with this, like this is fucking fine? Am I supposed to forget about this, what are you thi-”
“Calm down!” Brittany dropped the phone next to the upside-down red solo cup, from which very faint screaming could be heard. “Look. Steph. Breathe, okay? He’s just a tiny guy. He can’t hurt anyone. This is not a thing we need to call the cops for.”
Stephanie stared at her, incredulous. “What are you even going to, like, do?”
“Geez,” Brittany sighed. “Is this seriously your first time dealing with a little perv like him?”
“I- uh, in high school we were separated. I never really saw the tinies.”
“Is that so?” A little light gleamed from Brittany’s dark green eyes. “Well, how about you do the honors then.”
“Um. What honors?”
“You’ll love it.” She grinned from ear to ear. She slid the cylinder over the edge of the desk, ignoring the shouts of “You sluts! You bitches! I already came all over your socks!” from within. She held out her hand, grabbed the tiny as he was pushed over the edge, and gripped him tightly.
“God, stop squirming. Would you rather we step on you? Nah, you’d probably like that.”
“Fuck you! Let me go!” The tiny guy shouted before being muffled by a thumb bigger than his head.
“Uhhh, what are you doing?”
“You’re gonna love this. Oh, could you go to the kitchen and grab some more peach vodka?”
“What the fuck? Why?”
“It makes them go down easier.”
“Uh… hello? Stephanie? Hello, are you still with us?”
“Did she lose her connection? Should we dial her again? Percy, hang up and - ”
“Oh, hi!! Yep, mmhmm!” She snapped out of her daydream. “I understand completely, no cops! I get it.” She beamed. “I’ll deal with the little troublemakers myself!”
“Yeah. Well, it will mostly be “big” troublemakers. We’re worried about property damage, so-”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever! I gotcha. Little Frills Dome-Owners Association? Where did you say it was?”
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March 1, 2023
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