The Beach

The blare of the horn made Natalie jump in her seat. She was sitting in the heavy morning traffic, snow blowing hard against the windshield and realized she must have been dreaming of a warm sandy beach that was quite far south of her current location.

She waved an apology to the driver behind her, not sure why he was honking, seeing as she was only able to move ahead three feet. Another horn, somewhere in the tangled mess spewed its loud cry and she wanted get out and ask the surrounding drivers what they were expecting the horns to actually do? Did they think that the additional noise had the ability clear traffic and make driving a breeze? It was slow on a good day, but add in weather and forget it.

She pulled into the lot and checked her watch thinking about how nice it would be to not have to do this every day. As she walked in the door and hung up her coat she was informed of an impromptu meeting in the board room.

Her friend, the head of accounting began, “We have a dilemma. I’m having trouble working out these numbers and need advice. It could have a major impact. Saturday’s lottery win was twenty million. If you split that number seven ways, say, between all of us, the office lottery players, it’s roughly two point eight million each; someone will be two cents shorter than the rest. I’m not sure who wants to accept that?”

Natalie smiled as Martina’s words began to sink in. “We won?

“Yes!” Martina screamed “We won!”

“Well,” Natalie offered, visualizing her warm beach,” I guess I can take that two cent hit seeing as I was the last to join the group. It’s the least I can do.”