I crept along the narrow hallway, moving soundlessly on the balls of my feet. It was dark, but my senses were ultra-keen and I could see well despite the dim lighting, easily hear the slight scuffles of the enemy up ahead as they went about their day to day activities in the room around the corner. The sniper rifle I held loosely in my hands was cut illegally short, almost like a sawed off shotgun….
Which, now that I think about it I am pretty sure that’s physically impossible, but hey. It was a dream.
Like I always am in my dreams, I was back in my 15-year-old body – all energy and athletic ability and non-creaking limbs. I pulled down my night vision goggles over my eyes in anticipation of the power being cut. In the brief instance of confusion resulting from the sudden darkness, I would engage the night vision goggles, creep around the corner, and take out both bad guys with a single shot to the back of their head.
It wouldn’t even be hard. When you’re the world’s best-trained secret spy assassin who singlehandedly topples enemy governments on a regular basis, an assignment like this isn’t even difficult.
My fingers tightened on the trigger, and I adjusted the rifle’s strap over my shoulder. It’d be so easy – into the room, two shots to take down the pair of bad guys, and then I would engage the safety and sling the gun up on my back before crashing through the window and escaping out the side of the building.
Did I remember to bring my suction cup pads for my hands and knees, or should I maybe rappel down? Ooh, rappelling was definitely more fun. I think I’d decide after I took down the bad guys, which was going to happen any second, but maybe I could do an Australian rappel and run down the side of the building before—
“Becky.”
I whipped my head to the side, and The Bean stood there beside me, a cross expression on his face and a pile of papers in his hand. I placed my finger in front of my lips – the universal signal for SHUSSHHH YOUR PIEHOLE.
Despite his low voice and the way he quieted, I could hear the conversation of the bad guys stop up ahead. Crap. They heard him, and now they were alerted. This was not going to be the easy kill I thought it was going to be – I needed to burst into the room even before the power was cut, or I would have to revise my plan….
“Becky. Becky, we need to talk.”
I shushed The Bean again, and gestured down the hallway. Dude, do you not see I’m in the middle of being a spy?
“Becky, our budget needs attending to. Look,” he said, thrusting the paperwork at me. “Look, our overhead is grossly inflated, and with the recent surge in credit card expenditures, it’s going to put our net-to-profit ratio of the household at a single digit loss event.”
“Not now,” I hissed.
“We can’t wait. Percentage-wise, I’m not certain we are going to be able to meet our debts this month without carrying over a net profit loss expenditure from our asset sheets.”
The hallway suddenly lightened up, and the two bad guys appeared at the doorway, bodies tense, snorting out their nose in the classic “I’m a bad guy you were hunting, only now I’ve been spooked” pose. I mean, all bad guys do right before they bolt, right?
Hush. It was a dream, okay? It made sense.
I gave Bean my strongest, “Are you freaking kidding me?” raised eyebrow look, but it was no good. He just kept talking accountant at me.
“Look, look at this figure.” There was a giant -700 at the bottom of October, and then under November another string of incomprehensible, constantly shifting numbers, with a giant -1300 circled in glaring red. “We are carrying over a negative cash flow from month to month, which is rapidly reducing our overhead, and the owner equity expense account is going to make the monthly payroll not reconcile.” He paused, as if this was actually making sense to me, and then continued with his accountanty terms. “We’re going to lose our LLC ROI investment status, and the asset classes will be all diversified in a negative fashion. Also, we will have to spend less on groceries, so we can’t afford any coffee next month.”
At the end of the hallway both bad guys snorted again and spooked away, bounding down the hallway in giant leaps like frightened deer. I tried to sight them through my rifle, but they were gone around the corner, one of them skittering on the linoleum and nearly crashing into the wall before he made the turn and continued bounding away, his white tail flagging upwards in alarm.
Wait, he had a deer tail? I guess he did. I must not have noticed it before. Wait, I forgot. All bad guys had deer tails.
(Seriously, it was a dream, just roll with it.)
“Great. GREAT. Just great. Fine. FINE. They’re gone. You’ve completely ruined my kill. Let’s look at the budget.”
The Bean stared at me seriously. “Don’t bite my head off. This is important. We need to reconcile the budget, and this financial statement isn’t going to prepare itself, you know. ”
BEAN, I LOVE YOU, BUT STAY OUT OF MY DREAMS. YOU’RE RUINING THEM.
