Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

I’m Pink Lady Apple Yeggs and my friend Deviled Yeggs suggested that I record each project that I set up in the hopes of reforming the people who continue to work for Lily the Pink Enterprises.  If for no other reason, it would show how God is at work.

This is an unexpected blessing.  Hortense Tesla, my sister-in-law’s great aunt, had become a boarder in the apartments.  I even took a large apartment and turned it into a laboratory for her.  I thought she would tinker for her last days and then things would go back to normal.  But a new normal had set in.  This woman who had no thoughts about God, or none that I could tell, started attending vespers every night, and she became family.  But even then, she seemed guarded.

But then, she asked if I could allow her to use our medium sized conference room for a little party.  She said there would be cake and everything.  Of course, she was paying for the party, although I had given her the apartment and lab for practically no cost.  I thought a woman of one hundred years who still got around as well as she did should enjoy her last days.

But then her heart attack changed a lot, attitudes, mobility, everything.  She had little stamina, and her attitude was much more reflective and softer toward those around her.  Yet, she bickered with Blaise more than ever, while Blaise became more and more submissive and understanding.  An odd shift in both of their personalities.

I had to make a few shifts in the work schedules to have everyone there that Hortense wanted, but the day finally came.  Her lawyer, Astuto Picapleitos, a handsome Spaniard, stepped behind the podium,  “May I have everyone’s attention?  I am Astuto Picapleitos III.  My grandfather was Ms. Tesla’s first lawyer.  Ms. Tesla has been with our firm for 75 years.  It is my pleasure to introduce her, although all of you already know her in one capacity or another.  The children that she has worked with have already been saying a few things, but this meeting is to make all of it official.  I will say no more, other than whatever Ms. Tesla says has been worked out by our firm and everything mentioned tonight is legal and binding.”

Hortense Tesla took the microphone and then sat in her scooter.  “Astuto, you sly devil, I will miss you.”

“Good evening, everyone.  Some of you know me as Hortense Tesla, great aunt of Trinity Naomi Tesla Yeggs.  I like to call her ‘Mighty’ or M-I-T-E for dynamite.  Her nickname in her teenaged years was Nitroglycerin, or Glyce for short, because she easily exploded when shaken, but I have seen her grow into a wonderful human being.  She is not easily shaken, and what was Nobel’s great invention?  Nothing but an explosive that was not easily explosive when shaken, Dynamite, thus Mighty should be her name.  You can follow some of what I am saying on the projector screen.  It simply says, Hortense Tesla, but the children who have worked for me lately call me Aunt Tensie.” The Slide morphed into a stylish ‘Tensie.’  “But most of you only know me by a different logo.”  The ‘Tensie’ then morphed into the 75-year-old logo of Design by Tensie in an oval.  Missy Matthews gasped.  “Yes, Missy, you have been guarding more than a couple of impish children.  You have been guarding secrets.  I am ‘Design by Tensie.’  But the logo will change as of tonight.  I am retiring.  I have seen the world.  I have seen many things in my hundred years.  I only wish to see what I started by myself turn into a company that is self-sustaining.  I would love to see these two youngsters grow up, but I do not know if I have that much time left.  Thus, I am gifting them this company, and leaving some other things behind to others.”

“So far, Blaise and Sophia have learned how to work together, and they are starting to actually like each other.”  There were groans from Naomi and Deviled Yeggs, but many others in attendance chuckled.  “These two make a dynamo that rivals me at that age.  Apart, not so much.  They need each other.  I was a young lady, just out of college when I met two West Point Cadets at the Downtown Athletic Club in New York City.  One or the other was getting a trophy that night.  I can’t remember which.  They were called Mr. Inside and Mr. Outside.  Doc Blanchard, Mr. Inside, and Glenn Davis, Mr. Outside, were both nice boys.  But here in the lab at ‘Design by Tensie,’ I call Blaise my Mr. Inside.  You put something inside the box, and he is going to make it work.  I call Sophia my Miss Outside.  She has no idea where the box is, how to find the box, or what should be in the box, but when Blaise gets stuck, she asks what seems to be a dumb question.  By her question, with her outside the box thinking, she places something in Blaise’s box so that he is no longer stuck.  Maybe Blaise can do half of what I did over the past 75 years without Sophia, but he needs her for the other half and beyond.”  There were mumbles from the crowd.  “Thus, Mr. Inside is now the COO of the company, Chief Operating Officer.  Miss Outside is the CIO of the company, Chief Idea Officer.  But due to their age and neither of them finished with high school, Sophia not even started yet, I am appointing Pink Lady Apple Yeggs as CFO, Chief Financial Officer.  You have full control of the purse strings until Blaise is 25 years old.  At that time, you and these two can work out any details necessary for you to remain in your position or for them to run the company with people that they hire.”

“And yes, I said ‘hire’.  I started this enterprise by keeping myself hidden in anonymity.  Women were not respected in the field of engineering.  Rosie the Riveter may have been an advertising splash during the war years, but when I graduated college about the time the war was over, Rosie was asked to put away her welding helmet and grab her apron.  My fiancé had died in the Battle of the Bulge, a war hero, and I had no backing to support my engineering ideas.  I hid behind a company logo, and the patents started getting approved.  Now, women are accepted more readily, but for the short term, until these children grow up, I want everything said here tonight to stay within this room, not even family members who are not here.  I will read Easter and Jemima into this also.  As a minimum, each person in this room will receive $50,000 in trust.  Basically, hush money to keep this secret.  Oops, not you Mighty and your husband Dev.  You have kept my secret for many years already.  And forget about a pay increase or hush money, Astuto, you sly devil, you get paid plenty already.  The money will be fully yours when the company is prepared to make a public statement.  Either upon my passing or when Blaise reaches 25 years old.”  There was a growing murmur among those in attendance.

“Yes, Margie Justice, you are Blaise’s girlfriend.  I hear you are headstrong and the only thing lacking is Blaise popping the question.  I would prefer you not doing so until at least in college, but Blaise gets so focused on a project, you may have to propose to him.  I have his ring size, if you are ready for that.”  Everyone laughed.  “And Emmett Dalton, Sophia, until recently, refused to admit you were girlfriend, boyfriend, but a certain kiss that I have seen on video many times has changed that.  For either of you two romantic interests, you do not have to marry these two to get the money.  It will be money in keeping the secret and then shifted to a college fund for each of you.  Emmett, I hear you still want to be a preacher of some kind.  I wonder how that is going to work with farming on one side and jazz musician on the other.  I have met you, and I know you will figure that out.  And both of you can tell your parents that this was a well-chaperoned party with the chance of earning a scholarship.  That will satisfy them until we are ready to make this public.”

“As for you Jim Kaiser, you have a professional engineering license.  You will have a tough customer in Blaise Yeggs.  He has studied many engineering texts.  He makes his own calculations, but he will need someone with a professional engineering license to approve the drawings and calculations.  As for the drawings, Griffin Grunge will be the draftsman.  Both of you will get the hush money in trust, but you will be paid by the drawing according to a schedule that Astuto has prepared.  It is a little higher than average scale, and besides, you have the money in trust.  All hours worked for ‘Design by Tensie’ will be billed through the CFO who is your ultimate boss for your day job.  And Pink, I do not think these two will be overworked, but as CFO, you have the right to hire someone parttime for your company or for ‘Design by Tensie’ as long as you can keep that secret.”

“My insistence on secrecy for the short term is company value.  I was a woman in a man’s world, and I had to become anonymous to survive and thrive.  Many women authors used initials for the same reason.  These two are gifted children.  I do not wish for their ideas to not get equal consideration due to their age or lack of experience.  After all, as long as I am still breathing, I will be helping them, and we will have Jim Kaiser and Griffin Grunge to help also.  I kept the company small so that I worked on what interested me, and the proceeds met my needs.  Now, we might, if these two desire it, make this company into a national power.”

“And Dev, I see you about to ask a question. If your daughter keeps the idea of becoming your boss before you retire, I think she can accomplish that.  She is the “idea” person who keeps Blaise from getting stuck inside his little box.  She can work part-time.  And thinking of Miss Outside, I turn the microphone over to her.”

Sophie giggled a little.  “Aunt Tensie asked me to make a change in the company logo as of this meeting.  The only other person who knows about this new logo is Uncle Scrambled who painted it on the cake we are about to eat.  I think I drove Mr. Picapleitos crazy with my color changes, but I wanted a ‘nude’ logo.  Aunt Tensie had a blue ellipse with ‘Design by Tensie’ inside in white on a black background.  As the logo is morphing on the screen, you can see that with most backgrounds, there is no background color.  The logo will be clear.  But the logo will have a background if placed on a metallic surface or colors that make any of the logo colors disappear or nearly disappear.  And the only changes to the logo is that the dot for the two eyes will now be a red and orange flame, or our blaze.  And the last ‘e’ in Tensie will be carved into a bar of soap,  Thus, the blaze is for Blaise, and the soap is for me, since many of my friends call me Soapy, instead of Sophia.  This makes red, tan for the soap, and the blue for the ellipse and the writing making the new trademark requiring a background of black, as was the old logo.  Sorry, Aunt Pink, Mr. Picapleitos told me that cost more.”

And Aunt Tensie added, “And I told him I would take it out of his hide.  He, his father, and his grandfather have been paid well over the years, and he will still visit manufacturers and customers as our face until we make a public statement.  If an engineer is required, it will be Jim Kaiser.”

As the crowd again started to murmur.  “Oh, I forgot!” Aunt Tensie ejaculated! “Missy, my sweet friend.  You have been very attentive to these two children.  I also hear that you turned down a promotion to stay here, partially due to the children and partially due to a new friend with a set of bagpipes.  You will remain with Lily the Pink, but your $50,000 will be a college fund for you, and you will moonlight as head of security for ‘Design by Tensie.’  You and the CFO can work out a work schedule, pay arrangements, all that sort of thing.  I have no idea what a CSO or CISO gets paid these days, and no, Astuto, you sly devil, if you tell me you will want to get paid for the knowledge.”

I heard Aunt Tensie tell Naomi and Dev that they were mentioned in the will with a large share of what was not part of the company.  Everything that was a property of the company now was owned by Blaise and Sophie, in trust, controlled by me, until Blaise, the younger of the two would be 25 years old.

A side door was then opened and the jazz band that Emmett had been playing with entered.  Their stage was already set, and they played while everyone else had cake and hors d’oeuvres.  The band was just playing a gig, with their regular saxophone player until Emmett joined them for a couple of songs he had composed.  The dueling saxophones actually did well together, but now that the regular guy was healthy, Emmett was only used for special occasions at the Snazzy Taz.  He could be a freshman in high school, relatively anonymous, but with a big bank roll for the music gigs and a certain college fund.  I had already asked his parents if I could manage his cash flow, for relatively no money unless Emmett became a big star, and then I wouldn’t have the time to manage that.

But then Tensie pulled me aside.  “I wanted you to know, Pink, that your vespers services have made an impact on me.  Maybe the heart attack was a wakeup call, but your love was the key in all this, the new company, everything.  I now know where I am going if I died tonight.  Until I got here, I never thought about it.  It was not important, but maybe Blaise’s namesake was right.  It was Blaise Pascal who said something like this being a fool’s wager to not believe in Jesus.  You either lose nothing or you gain everything.  And I owe it to you.”

We hugged and cried.  I had a new job, but I also had an older sister.

Credits

Astuto Picapleitos is Sly Shyster in Spanish.

CIO is made up.  CSO is Chief Security Officer and CISO is Chief Information Security Officer.

I have no idea if all of this is legal in your state, but since I have never named the state in which the fictional city of Tracy is located, although I joked about how was Charlie the Tuna in Kansas In the very first episode back in 2017, it can be legal in the fictional state.