Page 15 of Wassailing We Will Go
They’re really nice there
Also I have the worst case of contact dermatitis they’ve ever seen
I groan loudly into a nearby throw pillow. Of course he does. I add his name into my phone and then text back:
KATE: Are you okay????
Do you know how bad the poison ivy is in the County? I’m just saying, the bar for really bad contact dermatitis is not low
Burn those thermal underwear sets immediately
HARRISON: I would but I now have reason to believe they are chock full of carcinogens
Itd prolly be damaging to all the life forms within a 2km area
Theyre in the bin I promise
I exhale deeply and search how long does contact dermatitis last, and the results are not encouraging. Some say days, some say weeks, depending on the case.
KATE: Thank god. How are you doing?
Obviously, take tomorrow off, and then you’re scheduled to be off Thursday anyway. If you need to take more time after, I completely understand.
I mentally go back through the plans I had started forming before Harrison fell out of the sky and into my lap. We can maybe pull one of our employees away from the orchard pruning. There’s also a gal on the tasting bar staff who does CrossFit and is definitely strong enough to help Charlie lug around bottles. I could see if maybe she’s game to switch roles for a while.
There are other options we can look at. I had just really liked how the first one was working out.
HARRISON: I’m so sorry about this
I promise that this is not like, a typical first week on the job for me
I’m in a lukewarm oats bath as we speak which is meant to help and it does seem to be working
It’s very weird though
I am currently a human muesli
These are way too many details between friendly acquaintances and definitely an overshare to one’s boss, but I laugh despite myself.
KATE: Throw raisins in and you’re all set
Those aren’t medicinal, I just like raisin muesli better
HARRISON: You know chocolate exists right
KATE: Listen, it’s your breakfast cereal bath, you do what you like
But for the record, my favourite cookie is also oatmeal raisin
Just putting my potential deal breakers out there for consideration now
Deal breaker for what, exactly, Kate? We are not dating. As soon as I send it, I want to take it back, but apparently, we have different flavours of cell phone, and I can’t delete it. Worse still, after this, he goes radio silent for a while, and I wonder if I’ve gone a little too far with my texting. He’s always been easy to talk to—that’s how I found myself in this entire situation not forty-eight hours after meeting the guy—but away from the cidery and after having a pint of seven percent cider, texting is a little too easy. But thankfully, fifteen minutes into a new episode of the terrible boat show and interrupting a situation where everyone on the yacht appears to be angry about how a chicken dish is being served, the dings start to rattle off again:
HARRISON: Sorry I took so long to reply, Britt and Ryan just got home
I had a lot of explaining to do just now
I think I am both the worst house guest they’ve ever had and the most entertaining so I guess those cancel out
