The Humdrum Lives of Cryptids, Monsters, and Villains
Page 6
through the telephone. She listened to the song and looked around her living room. With a swish of her tail, she placed the fallen lamp back upon its end table. She sat idly on her forty foot long couch for a few moments and listened to the hold music, growing more and more impatient with each passing second. She had been waiting for weeks for her guitar to arrive, anxious and excited about the prospect of learning to play the guitar, especially one that had been made just for her, exactly as she had always imagined it.
The summer season always made Nessie feel a little down in the dumps. The loch was teeming with activity most days, and she had to confine herself to her cave for long periods of time in order to not be sighted, or worse - hunted down. She had been beginning to feel a bit stir-crazy, tired of rereading the same old books and watching the same old television programs, and had thought that learning to play the guitar could be the perfect distraction to elevate her mood and turn her summer around.
The song playing through the telephone changed. It was a song she hoped to learn on her new guitar. She lightly flicked the edge of the guitar with her tail, and it floated through the water into her telephone free flipper. She had never actually played a guitar before, and did not even know how to hold it properly, especially without some of the modifications she had requested. The body of the guitar was extra wide, just as she had specified, but the neck was the normal size and shape, which would make it quite hard for her to play with her enormous flippers. It was this problem that she needed rectified. The music in the earpiece of the telephone stopped abruptly. A cheerful male voice began speaking immediately.
"Hello-ho-ho, I'm under the impression that a good little girl wished to speak to me, is that correct?"
Nessie paused before replying, set the guitar down in her lap, and tried to place where she had heard the voice before. It sounded so familiar...
"Hello-ho-ho, is anyone there?" the voice asked. It still sounded cheerful, but a bit uncertain.
"Uh, yes, sorry, I'm here. I did ask to speak to you but I... Your voice just sounded so familiar. Are you... I know this will sound stupid if I'm wrong... Are you Santa Claus?" Nessie asked.
"Oh no-ho-ho..." The voice sighed heavily but still sounded cheerful somehow. "Yes, this is Santa Claus. How does everyone figure that out?"
"I think it's the ho-ho-ho's."
"I'm afraid you're right," Santa sighed again. "Well, no matter, no matter. What may I help you with, my dear?"
"I ordered a custom made guitar from Cryptophone and it arrived this morning but was not made to my exact specifications. I'd like to have it modified to the degree that I paid for."
"Ah, I see. Well, I'm afraid that is not an issue that I can take care of personally unless you want to wait until Christmas time... Do you want to wait until Christmas time?" Santa Claus asked somewhat uncertainly. Customer service was clearly not his strong suit.
"No, I would like to have this taken care of immediately." Nessie replied in what she hoped was a polite voice.
"Of course, of course. Let's see... I suppose I could get in touch with Cryptophone and have one of the builders contact you directly?"
Nessie's eyes lit up. Finally, some progress might be made. "Yes! That would be great. Thank you Santa."
"No-ho-ho problem, Nessie!" Santa Claus replied jovially. "I'll arrange for them to contact you immediately."
"Santa, I have a quick question before you go."
"Why anything, my dear. Ask away, ask away." Santa chortled.
"How did you know my name? How did you know it was me? I never told you..."
"Well, Nessie, I am Santa Claus, after all. I'm omniscient!"
"Uh huh... right," Nessie said somewhat uncertainly. "One more question?"
"Of course, of course."
"Why are you running a third party customer service company out of the North Pole?"
Nessie was met with a tense silence on the other end of the line that lasted at least ten seconds.
"Oh-ho-ho, what's that, dear? Yes, I'll be right there, love," Santa Claus apparently called away from the telephone. "Well, Mrs. Claus needs me in the other room, Nessie. I must go. Such is married life, ho-ho-ho! I'll have the Cryptophone builders contact you directly."
Santa Claus hung up abruptly before Nessie could say anything. She lowered the telephone, placing it back on the receiver with a confused expression on her face. She was glad that she would actually be able to speak to someone at Cryptophone, but she was bewildered by her exchange with Santa Claus. Was money really so tight around the North Pole that he needed to resort to having the elves moonlight as a customer service agency?
Or had Santa Claus become greedy? Or was he always greedy? Nessie had many questions and much to think about, but it would have to wait as her phone had begun to ring.
Nessie cleared her throat and picked up the telephone. "Hello, this is the Loch Ness Monster."
"Hi, I just received a call from our customer service provider and was informed that there is a problem with your custom Cryptophone guitar," a kind voice said.
"Yes, that is correct. Only parts of it were made to my specifications."
"Ah... We've had several reports of this lately. A disgruntled yeti on our assembly line, which has been terminated from our team, I might add, was producing subpar guitars that were not at all up to the high quality expectations that are expected from each and every Cryptophone guitar. I'm sorry for your inconvenience."
"Well, thank you, and I'm sorry to hear about that, but what can be done to fix my guitar?" Nessie asked, hoping not to be given the return and refund only runaround again.
"Due to the high number of misconstructed guitars, we have hired a specialist to make on demand repairs. You are located in Loch Ness in Scotland, correct?"
"That is correct," Nessie said, beginning to feel excited.
"Excellent. Our specialist is actually already in the area repairing a kelpie's banjo. We will dispatch our specialist to your location as soon as possible. It should be within an hour or so."
"That would be fantastic. Thank you so much for your help," Nessie said, beaming.
"No problem at all. I'm sorry for your inconvenience. Let me get your address, and we’ll send our Cryptophone technician right over."
The Cryptophone representative hung up after receiving the Loch Ness Monster’s underground cave address, and Nessie placed her phone upon its receiver. She was happy that some progress was finally being made. She glowed at the prospect of learning to play her guitar by that evening.
Nessie’s cave was already neat in appearance. She was in the habit of picking up after herself and keeping her possessions in an orderly and aesthetically pleasing presentation in her home, but she decided to make sure that absolutely everything was in its place before her visitor arrived. Even though it was only a professional visit, she still strived to have a presentable living space no matter who visited.
It was difficult, at times, for Nessie to keep all of the items in her home in their proper places because of the fact that they were constantly immersed in water and subject to the ripples produced by her massive, dinosaur-like body gliding past them. Usually nothing was more than a few inches from where it belonged, aside from the occasions that her pet salmon would knock things over. Its name was Pinky and although she had kept it as a pet for several years now, it was still quite rambunctious. And, of course, Nessie’s own tail was her own worst enemy when it came to knocking things over in her cave.
She bustled about the cave moving her items back into their proper spaces, usually only pushing them an inch or less to get them back into their perfect spot. There was however an errant vase that had somehow made its way to the ceiling. She hastily returned it to an end table and looked around her cave, realizing that there really was nothing else that needed straightening out.
Nessie sat down on her forty foot long couch, her pet salmon Pinky swimming idly by her tail. She decided to watch some television to pass the time until the Cryptophone Guitar technic
ian arrived. She had been weighing the pros and cons of getting cable television, and it was times like the present that made her wish she had it. There was nothing interesting on the few available channels that her antenna clad television could pick up.
She did pause for a moment, her heart seemingly standing still in her chest, as a headline on a news report read: SOMETHING UNSAVORY IS IN LOCH NESS. She gripped the television remote tightly, hoping desperately against seeing a photo of herself or seeing some new monster hunter or “scientist” saying that there was new information about her, but preparing herself for it all the same. The news story turned out to not be about her at all. It was about pollution in the loch.
Nessie felt her muscles relax and she loosened her grip on the television remote. She was not happy, by any means, that there was an increase in pollution in her loch, her home, but she was pleased that the story was not about her.
Pinky swam before her, a waterlogged tennis ball in its mouth, and distracted her from the rest of the news story. Nessie threw the ball for her, but as always, it only moved a few feet through the water before floating slowly down to the floor. Pinky usually lost interest in the ball around the same time that it left Nessie’s fins when she threw it. Nessie sighed and a stream of bubbles made their way toward the ceiling as Pinky settled under the coffee table.
A knock at the front door resounded through the stone walls of the cave,