Josh put on his shoes and flexed his fingers as he prepared to leave the house. It was the weekend of August 14-16th – an important weekend in the Edmonds yearly calendar, featuring the annual festival called “Taste of Edmonds.” Hundreds of vendors from restaurants all over the region participated, as well as some non-culinary companies.

Josh’s chiropractic clinic had a booth at the festival every year where they did free spinal evaluations and mini-massages. New to Edmonds and the clinic, Josh was preparing to leave for his first four hour shift helping at the booth.

“Well, here goes nothing,” he said to a sleepy Jacki, who shrugged sympathetically from her spot on the couch.

“I haven’t done any massage since the few courses I had to take when I was getting certified as an athletic trainer! I can’t believe they had to resort to using me.”

The clinic had five part-time massage therapists but only one had been available for the weekend, even though all of them had been working at the clinic several years and knew the event happened annually. Josh thought that was a bad sign.

He kissed Jacki on the way out the door and set out up the hill. It was a cool morning for August and he thought hopefully that it even looked like it could rain. By the time he got to Main street, he was grateful that he hadn’t driven over. Car lined every side street he passed and the event hadn’t even officially started yet.

“Hey Josh, glad you made it,” said Josh’s boss Dr. Melli when he found their booth. She smiled at him and handed him a rolled up banner.

“Can you put this up in the corner there?” She pointed. Josh frowned. No one would see the banner in the back corner of the booth. It was black and would be in shadow. Apparently the office manager, Julie, was thinking the same thing.

“No,” she said to Dr. Melli, “It definitely needs to go on the outside of the tent here!” Josh frowned again. No one would see it there either – it looked like the main foot traffic walked past the other side! He opened his mouth but shut it again when he saw the look on Dr. Melli’s face. He backed away to let the two women fight it out. Eventually the banner was hung in the darkest corner of the booth.

She’s the boss, Josh thought, no big deal. Twenty minutes later, he had been asked to move the massage chair to three different spots before it was in the right spot, then another mini-duel had been fought about how to display the brochures and how to organize the scheduling binder. Dr. Melli kept asking questions like, “Where are the pens? What about a stapler? Why didn’t anyone bring the a stapler? Why do we only have two clipboards? We always need at least five!”

“Jacki, nobody organized anything!” he moaned later, as he lay on the couch, icing his thumbs, “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but they should have planned this out way ahead of time! The whole thing was a disaster.”

He closed his eyes. When he opened the again, Jacki had a smug grin on her face.

“Didn’t they have anyone who was in charge of the event?” Jacki asked.

“Apparently not,” Josh said, “Julie says all the necessary information lives only in Dr. Melli’s head. So planning the event only happens when Dr. Melli has time to think about, which unfortunately wasn’t very much.”

“But if they’ve been doing the event for years, why doesn’t someone else write everything down so they can reference a planning manual next year?”

Josh grinned at Jacki.

“But that would be too easy, Jacki.” He laughed, and shook his head mockingly, “Way too logical.”

She laughed too and didn’t say, “It’s just common sense,” the way she usually did.

“How did the massages go?” she asked, changing the subject, “Did you feel like you did okay?”

“Oh yeah,” said Josh, “when it’s only five minutes, it’s a cinch. And one person even told me that my five minute massage was better than the one-hour one they had two days ago,”

“Wow,” said Jacki, “You must be really good.” She sounded wistful but there was something in her tone that suddenly made Josh suspicious.

“So would I have to pay you $15 an hour,” she said, looking up at the ceiling, “to actually get a back massage once in awhile?”

Josh groaned.

“I should have seen that coming,” he rolled his eyes, “I give you back rubs.”

Jacki raised an eyebrow,

“Maybe once a quarter,” she said sternly. Then she smiled,

“Don’t worry, babe, I’ll let you off the hook for tonight.”

Josh lifted his now-frozen thumbs out of the ice packs and gave her two thumbs-ups.

“My thumbs thank you,” he said. Jacki rolled her eyes.