It should have been a good day.

Some high school way out in the suburbs was renovating and finally getting rid of its machine shop and no one else wanted a bunch of lathes and bandsaws that had been gathering dust for thirty years and might or might not even work, so Cassie had been able to pick them up for barely more than the cost of the gas to drive to the auction, and they'd just barely all fit in the back of the van.

But then she got back to her warehouse and there was a gently smoking pickup truck and an inexplicable sofa blocking the good loading dock.  She'd have to park the van, and go almost all the way around the block to get to the people door from the other side, and wrestle the door on the other dock open far enough to get the van in...

And partway there, the on-again off-again drizzle finally got its act together and started coming down in earnest.  Of course.

It should have been a good day.

Some high school way out in the suburbs was renovating and finally getting rid of its machine shop and no one else wanted a bunch of lathes and bandsaws that had been gathering dust for thirty years and might or might not even work, so Cassie had been able to pick them up for barely more than the cost of the gas to drive to the auction, and they'd just barely all fit in the back of the van.

But then she got back to her warehouse and there was a gently smoking pickup truck and an inexplicable sofa blocking the good loading dock.  She'd have to park the van, and go almost all the way around the block to get to the people door from the other side, and wrestle the door on the other dock open far enough to get the van in...

And partway there, the on-again off-again drizzle finally got its act together and started coming down in earnest.  Of course.

It should have been a good day.

Some high school way out in the suburbs was renovating and finally getting rid of its machine shop and no one else wanted a bunch of lathes and bandsaws that had been gathering dust for thirty years and might or might not even work, so Cassie had been able to pick them up for barely more than the cost of charging the van to drive to the auction, and they'd just barely all fit in the back of the van.

But then she got back to her warehouse and there was a gently smoking pickup truck and an inexplicable sofa blocking the good loading dock.  She'd have to park the van, and go almost all the way around the block to get to the people door from the other side, and wrestle the door on the other dock open far enough to get the van in...

And partway there, the on-again off-again drizzle finally got its act together and started coming down in earnest.  Of course.