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ENOUGH
When the desk clerk watched the dark man walk through the lobby wearing yet another pair of muddy boots, he decided he'd had ENOUGH. "Sir," he snapped vehemently as he crossed the deep red carpet in short, angry strides. "I believe I've asked you multiple times to refrain from entering the building through the lobby when sporting such atrociously filthy footwear." The man ignored the clerk for a moment, reaching into his beige silk sport jacket. He withdrew a monogrammed cigarette case, opened it, withdrew one of the slender and expensive looking sticks and snapped the case shut with a CLICK. He then proceeded to light up and draw in a large lungful of smoke, exhaling it through his nostrils as the clerk looked on in disbelief. "Sir!" the clerk exclaimed. His face was growing red and a blue vein pulsed at his temple. "It is also not permitted to SMOKE," (he handled the word as if it were the toilet brush in the poolhouse bathroom), "in the lobby, as the well-posted signs clearly indicate." The clerk took the opportunity to indicate an engraved placard hung on one of the several large marble columns which supported the vaulted ceiling of the lobby, his pointer-finger stick-straight and trembling. The man slowly shifted his gaze over to the sign and considered it for a moment, as if he'd only just then realized there was any such thing in the lobby. He ran his eyes over it and nodded a few times as if agreeing with the sign's message. NO SMOKING IN THE LOBBY, it proclaimed. Having taken this in, the man turned and surveyed the steaming little clerk once more. Then, he drew in another gulp of smoke, blew it disdainfully into the clerk's face, put out his cigarette in the rich, dark soil of a nearby potted plant and proceeded to saunter toward the elevator. The clerk remained where he was, staring after the pompous figure, his eyes about to pop from his sockets, his fists clenched into tight balls at his sides. |
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