Floyd Kelly

The break room at work has one rule: you don’t cook broccoli, curry, or—under any circumstances—fish in the communal air fryer. Everyone knows this. Except, apparently, for Todd. I walked in, ready to finally pop the gourmet sea salt popcorn I’d been craving, and the smell hit me like a wall. Oh no, Todd was there, meticulously arranging mackerel and caviar in the basket with his long, boney fingers.

“Dude. Seriously? What is that?” I said.

He giggled, “What?”, he asked without looking up. “It’s healthy and gluten free.”

I just mumbled “This is going on my MySpace account.” I pulled out my phone, posting to my account: “Co-worker committing a smelly food crime in the break room.” Then I had an idea.

When he went to the fridge for tartar sauce, I walked over to the air fryer, reached into my bag of kernels, and sprinkled a handful in with his smelly gunk. I set the timer to 5 minutes and stepped back.

The first POP was loud, making Todd jump. Then another, and a third, there were then pings galore, followed by a metallic scraping sound as a kernel ricocheted off the heating element. Within minutes, the machine was in a full-blown frenzy, shaking on the counter as a cascade of pops turned into a miniature bombardment. Then came the stinky smoke.

Somebody screamed. The fire alarm blared, and the sprinklers sent water everywhere. The entire office started filing out to the parking lot. The fire department arrived, followed by Constable Munchkin.

Upon arriving, Constable Munchkin completely ignored the smoldering appliance. His eyes scanned the cluttered counter, his eyes wide with a strange intensity.

“My god,” he whispered, pointing a finger at my coffee mug near the sink.

“The mug,” Munchkin said, his voice full of reverence. “The one that says, ‘I survived another meeting that should have been an email.’ Oh my god, it’s in Comic Sans. I love the font and very large lettering.” He gently picked it up with an unusual care, cradling it in both hands like a holy relic. “It’s a glorious masterpiece. The raw honesty… the sheer, unapologetic choice of font. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen!”

A firefighter just stared at him, then at me, then sighed and blasted the air fryer with the extinguisher. “Appliance is neutralized!” he yelled over the hiss.

Constable Munchkin didn’t even flinch. He walked right past the mess and came over to me, his expression deadly serious as he held up the mug.

“I’m commandeering this evidence,” he said, his voice low. “Under the ‘Precinct Morale’ initiative. The boys down at the station… they need to see this. They need to know what they’re fighting for.”