Fandom Post Office, January 29 (Tuesday)

[filleauloup]

Apparently it was going to be corn chips today.

That was what Éponine kept finding around the post office, in any case: letter trays full of them, handfuls spilling out of the mailboxes whenever they were opened, even a few taped to envelopes in lieu of postage.

She would be doing a lot of sweeping over the next few days, that was for certain, especially since the stuff was quite literally getting underfoot; for now, though, she just had to put up with it as best she could while stepping on as few chips as possible.

She did, however, take a few minutes while out on a delivery run to stop and buy herself a couple of jars of dip, because she'd be damned if she'd be eating this many chips without anything to put on them.

Well, the post office was open, anyway, even if it had to be navigated quite carefully.

[OOC: . . . yeah, I don't know. It's open, anyway!]

Comments

[whatdattonguedotho]

Eddie was finally trying to talk to local businesses! By sticking to people he kinda knew for now.

"Did something happen here?"

EDDIE. EDDIE, CAN WE EAT THIS?

[filleauloup]

"Only the usual sort of nonsense," Éponine answered before looking up, because she was busy clearing more corn chips out of the till. When she finally finished that and looked up, she gave a frazzled little laugh. "Oh, it's you, Monsieur Eddie! Hello."

Please feel free to eat all the chips, Venom. Please.

[whatdattonguedotho]

He would. He super,would. Give that goo all the chocolate and potatoes, please.

"Just Eddie," he said, shuffling around the chips as carefully as he could.

[filleauloup]

"Oh, well, if you insist," Éponine replied, "I'll try and remember that, though it's a bit of a habit to call people that."

Most of the men she knew around here, anyway.

"How are you today, in any case? And d'you want to take some chips? They'll only make more of a mess otherwise."

You put whatever you want on them, Venom. Live your best life.

[whatdattonguedotho]

Somewhere around Eddie's liver, Venom was doing that hyperventilating with how thing.

"I could take some if that's cool." Yesss. Yeess. Feed him, Seymour. "Also to help you out here."

[filleauloup]

"I'd appreciate that, I would," Éponine told him. "It'll do me a favor, as far as cleaning up later goes. But what are you here for? Have you got something to mail?"

[whatdattonguedotho]

"Oh. No. No, no, no. I think I only get bills and junk mail." Like any proper millennial anti-hero.

[filleauloup]

"Ah, so I don't know whether to thank you for making my job easier or blame you for when I get bored, then," Éponine teased him.

[whatdattonguedotho]

"Beats cleaning up chips at least, right?" he replied.

[filleauloup]

"Maybe, but if I had to help you send things through the post I'd also have better things to do than clean up chips," Éponine retorted cheerfully.

[whatdattonguedotho]

"Ya got me there," Eddie replied with a dopey grin. "I was coming by maybe to look into a partnership with the paper. You know? Get the name out there."

[filleauloup]

"Ah, you've come to talk business! That's better than cleaning up chips all day too." Éponine dusted her hands off dramatically and rolled two of the desk chairs out from behind the counter, gesturing to him to take one. "Very well, let's hear it. I'm willing to entertain the notion."

[whatdattonguedotho]

It was a foot in the door! Eddie was already ahead with that.

"So, we don't have any readership. At all." Which was bad. "But! But, if we worked with you, maybe we can get people interested in it."

[filleauloup]

"Aha! Yes, I think I see where you're going with this," Éponine said, slightly more of a resemblance to her father than she liked in the sharp glint in her eyes. "That makes sense, it does. I can get the word out, that's easy enough, running about all day as I do. But tell me, monsieur, what's in it for me if I do?"

[whatdattonguedotho]

"Well, I hadn't figured that part out yet." Shocking no one.

[filleauloup]

"It's a good thing I'm not of a mind to fleece you for all I can get from it then, isn't it?" Éponine laughed. "And that I'm willing to be quite reasonable about it. Well, I'll come up with something, I will."

That might maybe sound a little bit ominous. It wasn't, really, but it sounded like it.

"So what is it you need me to do?"

[whatdattonguedotho]

"I'm hopin' to get a weekly edition out there. And maybe if you could help us deliver them to the more busy businesses around here..."

Meaning the bar? Was he meaning the bar?

[filleauloup]

"Reasonable enough, as it doesn't take me out of my way," Éponine decided. "But it will all be terribly heavy, you know, and there's the matter of all the stairs . . . well, I tell you what. For a reasonable monthly fee something like $20 or some other not entirely financially sound amount and a small ad for the post office in the paper each week, I'll do it. How's that?"

She paused.

"And you've got to promise to take some of these chips off my hands when you leave today, besides."

[whatdattonguedotho]

"You have yourself a deal," Eddie said, grinning as he offered over a hand to shake.

[filleauloup]

"As do you, monsieur -- Eddie." Éponine grinned back at him as she reached over to shake his hand.

Take all the chips, Venom. All of them.

[whatdattonguedotho]

"You got a bag or anything? I can take these back to the paper and... see if deer eat chips."

Or eat half of them himself while she looked for a bag.

[filleauloup]

"Let me see what I can find," Éponine told him, and got up to rummage around, coming back with several large Tyvek mailing envelopes. "It's the best I can do, but they're likely to hold up better anyhow."

[whatdattonguedotho]

"I'll return the favor somehow," he promised. "Maybe coffee or something?"

For some strange reason, Venom grumbled at him for that.

[filleauloup]

"That's perfectly acceptable," said Éponine, laughing. "Perhaps I'll collect at some point when I come by to deliver all your bills and junk mail, hmm?"

[whatdattonguedotho]

"If I'm there," he agreed. "Spend most of the day at the paper sorting things out."

Oddly enough, there was a lot of backlog!

[filleauloup]

Who knew?

“Doesn’t that just sound like the dullest thing! It’s as if you need the coffee more than I do,” Éponine remarked.

[whatdattonguedotho]

"Sometimes the deer have cake for someone's birthday." Oh god, he was so old for thinking that was the best part of working at an office.

[filleauloup]

“. . . what kind of cake?”

Look, these were the important questions.

[whatdattonguedotho]

"Usually chocolate," he said, cheering up a bit over it.

[filleauloup]

“Oh, good.” Was it sad that she was really relieved about this? “Though berries might be nice now and then.”

[whatdattonguedotho]

"I'll try to mention it to them, but... they're deer." Actual deer. "Not really sure how they type, but they manage it."

[filleauloup]

“You don’t suppose they bake the cakes, do they?”

That was a disturbing thought.

[whatdattonguedotho]

It was like that thought just occurred to him with that question. Then again, he was willing to eat strange floor chips, so...

"I don't think I wanna know."