The Deborah Project - Softcover

Peacock, Donald J.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1524673048 ISBN 13: 9781524673048

Publisher: AuthorHouse, 2017

Synopsis

The Deborah Project is a collection of nineteen stories about different Deborahs and what they are involved with. Each of the stories has a surprising word pun ending.                                                            

About this title

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The Deborah Project

By Donald J. Peacock

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2017 Donald J. Peacock
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-5246-7304-8

CHAPTER 1

Deborah Jo Parker walked slowly across the tarmac, towards the huge building that formed the airport. It was the main terminal building at Dulles Airport in Northern Virginia near Washington D. C. She had been traveling this short distance from the employee' parking lot to the terminal five days a week for over twenty-four years and had finally attained the position Team Leader of the team that cleaned the terminal every night. From midnight to 4:00 am she led her team in getting the job done, working as hard as anyone on the job to make sure nothing was missed or short changed. The hardest parts were the bathrooms since a lot of people always figured that a public bathroom was a place to not worry about missing the urinal, dropping pieces of toilet paper, used or unused, splashing water over the edge of the sink, plus many more minor and non-minor mishaps, accidental or intended. She felt a dedication to the job few could manage.

During the twenty-four years she had worked there, she had married, had four children, watched them grow up and go on to better jobs than she had ever held. They had higher pay, better and easier hours, and better chances to get into upper management. She was proud of her accomplishments in these endeavors, although most of the people going through the terminal paid no attention to what she did. To them, she was just another cleaning lady to go around as they hurried through the terminal on the way to the important things in their lives. Most never took time to understand that she had important things in her life also. Keeping an airline terminal clean was important, only she really knew how important. Her management let her do her own thing because she did the job superbly, never needing reminding of anything. They went on their round of duties each day and went home to their families knowing that everything was perfect. They only really acknowledged her if someone commented on the cleanliness of the place. Then they would mention Debbie, the cleaning lady, and state that cleanliness is something they never have to worry about because they have Debbie and her team. Then they would pause, and finally give her the ultimate praise. The terminal is always in great shape because:

Debbie Does Dulles.

CHAPTER 2

She loved her job. It was easy, had a low level of supervision, and left her time to work on other things she enjoyed, like writing fiction, playing bridge on the computer, or talking on the phone. She was currently working on her family genealogy in which she had found and documented several ancestors who had been royalty in the middle ages, including two kings. She planned to publish this as a book and sell it to her relatives. Her full name was Captain Phyliss Deborah Alsinki, although she much preferred everyone to call her Deborah or Debbie. She came from a long line of government employees, all proud of the job they did, always doing it well, and happily retired to spend their time on their many hobbies and being with their families.

She had been on this job four years, monitoring and managing the launch computers for two hundred ICBM missiles, each with a nuclear warhead that could destroy any city in the world. Nothing had required her to take action since it had been a time of nuclear peace for the last ten years.

The ICBMs and their warheads had only required a mandatory full operational checkup every three months. Part of the checkup procedure was to fully realign the launch coordinates on every missile. This was a simple process which involved running the individual launch system on each missile through a series of coordinates and returning it back to its original setup. Each of the check coordinates included New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Miami, Dallas/Fort Worth, Minneapolis, New Orleans, and on down to many medium size cities. After the checks were run, the coordinates were returned to their original settings.

Deborah had assisted her superiors in running through this procedure sixteen times over her four years as a missile control officer. She knew the process down to the last comma and period. She didn't even need a review, she understood it that well.

As the senior officials entered the room, Deborah greeted them by name and asked about their well-being and their families. Each one responded briefly and moved to their positions preparing to start the check run. At a signal from the colonel in charge, they looked towards Deborah and nodded for her to start the procedure.

Deborah reached down, pushed the blue button, and watched to make sure everything started correctly. Once rolling, all she had to do was sit back and keep an eye on things. After all the times she had been involved in this, she found it easy to stay very relaxed throughout the test, thinking about things that she had to get done after work.

All of a sudden there was a loud crashing noise and Deborah hurriedly reached out and pushed herself up with her hands. As she looked around she saw that the sound had come from one of the lieutenants who had accidentally knocked over his chair.

"That really scared me. I had no idea what happened," Deborah remarked. Looking back at her monitor, her eyes grew large, her face flushed. The screen was flashing "Launch, launch, launch." This had never happened before. The colonel came running over, looked at the monitor, then at the console. "Oh my God. You both hit the red button when you jumped. That initiates full launch of all 200 missiles. We have to stop it."

"We can't," said a captain standing beside him. "It is now fully automatic."

"My God," said the colonel, "what coordinates were in place when you hit the button?"

"I think it was Los Angeles. No, it was past that. Let me check and see. Ah ha, it was two steps past Los Angeles, so that would be Dallas.

Within hours all of the news media had large, screaming headlines saying:

"Debbie Dooms Dallas."

CHAPTER 3

At last she got to go into town on her own and do some shopping. She had a long list of items including clothes, shoes, and a number of hair and makeup items to look for. Her name was Deborah Marilyn McStine and she had grown up on a farm outside of Dallas, Texas. Just far enough outside of town to make it difficult to get into town easily on her own. But now she was eighteen years old and could make the trip by bus on her own. She also had her first debit card with a limit of $2,000, she felt all grown up now and was going to show it. Her Dad dropped her off at the local bus stop and waited with her until the bus came and she was on it. Finally she was on her way.

Upon arrival in downtown Dallas she stepped off the bus and turned to look for a taxi. As she moved away from the bus, a bicycle rider came rolling along the walkway between the busses, hitting her with the handlebar and knocking her to the ground. As the bicyclist hurried on his way, the bus driver came quickly down the steps of the bus.

"My gosh girl, didn't you hear him coming? Are you hurt?" he asked as he reached down to help her up.

"I don't think so. Maybe just some bruises. I'll be all right in a minute or two".

She picked up her purse, checked it, and headed to the taxi stand. As she approached the single taxi waiting there, an elderly couple rushed in front of her and jumped into it. She almost fell off the curb, stepped back and yelled a dirty word as the taxi pulled away. It would be twenty minutes before another taxi would arrive.

Once downtown, Deborah was anxious to start on her spending spree. In the biggest Department store in the Galleria Mall in Dallas, it only took her twenty minutes to spend six hundred dollars. As she walked to the shoe store, toting three shopping bags full of stuff, she checked to make sure her thirty dollars bus money was safely tucked into the secret pocket in her jacket along with the money for the taxi ride back to the bus station.

As she entered the shoe store, prepared to do some more serious buying, she set her shopping bags down beside one of the chairs and started through the display racks. Fifteen minutes later she carried five boxes of shoes back to her selected chair, sat down, opened the first box just as a salesman walked up to assist her. She reached down to pull out a new dress she had just bought in order to match color and noticed that there were only two shopping bags instead of three.

"What happened?" she asked. "Where is my other shopping bag? Did you see anybody take it?"

"No, not for sure. I saw a young couple leave about ten minutes ago carrying something. I really didn't notice what it was for sure."

Deborah hopped up, looked out the door and saw no one. "They're gone. With my new clothes. This can't be happening." Uncertain as to what to do, she went back to her seat and asked the salesman what to do. He told her that the only thing she could do was to report it to Mall Security, but finding the right person carrying a shopping bag in a Mall was nearly impossible.

Resigned to her loss, she started trying on shoes with the help of the salesman. Eventually, she picked out three pairs, paid for them, and left the store, once again carrying three shopping bags. She headed over to another clothing store to see what they had. As she started looking through the racks of clothes she made sure to keep one eye on her shopping bags. She paid for the items she had picked out which brought the amount left on her debit card to four hundred dollars. She then decided to look around a bit more just for fun. The problem was she neglected to keep an eye on other things. As she walked back to where her stuff was, she started to feel faint. Her purse was gone.

She searched all around the chair, and all around the area, finding nothing. Tears welled up in her eyes as she asked the sales clerk what she could do. All he could do was to console her and advise her to tell Mall Security. At that point she knew her purse was gone, never to be seen again. Her consolation was that her taxi money to get back to the bus station, the bus money home, plus her debit card were in her jacket so she could still get home, and the purse had very little of real value left in it.

At that point, she decided to go ahead and finish her shopping. She eventually filled another shopping bag, giving her four to carry. She picked them all up and headed towards the taxi stand which was four blocks away. As she walked along the third block struggling with all of her shopping bags, a young woman, reading something as she walked, bumped into Deborah causing one bag to drop to the sidewalk. Deborah bent over, still struggling, got it picked up, and then continued on her way to the taxi stand. At the taxi stand she hopped into the first taxi in line, putting her shopping bags on the seat beside her. She told the driver to take her to the bus station and settled back into her seat, then reached into her pocket to get the credit card and to put it in the secret jacket pocket.

She felt in the right hand pocket where she had put it, and then in the left hand pocket, starting to get a little frantic. The card was not there. What could have happened to it? Finally, she realized two things. The first was that the young lady who had bumped into her had picked her pocket, and the second was that the card was a debit card with only $2.00 left on it. She quickly checked the inside pocket of her jacket and felt the money that would pay for her taxi and the bus home. At that point she sat back, prepared for her ride.

When the taxi pulled into the station, Deborah saw her bus waiting. She quickly paid the driver, got all of her bags collected again, and moved as quickly as she could over to the bus. Another bus driving through splashed muddy water onto her dress soaking her from the waist down. The driver of her bus that driver witnessed it and hopped out with a towel so she could clean herself as best as she could. He apologized for the other driver, and helped her board her bus. She prepared to sit back and try to enjoy her ride home, knowing that her father would be waiting to pick her up.

At home, she planned to write this trip up in her daily journal and she had the perfect title:

Dallas Does Debbie.

CHAPTER 4

Deborah knew this was going to be a lot of work, but it had to be done. The State and the Federal Government required it. It was time again for the State grade school test that would determine the Federal funding the State and subsequently Dallas would receive for the next school year. This was a critical step for the city. Without an above average rating Dallas would have to consider some large and serious cutbacks, maybe even closing some schools and dealing with the Teacher's Union about layoffs. The city had had to lay off 15% of the school's management people due to the reduced income from taxes.

As the Assistant Secretary for the city school board, Deborah Lou Wilson had been put in charge of ensuring everything that could be done would be achieved. Several meetings had been held, laying out duties for everyone. Future meetings were scheduled to make sure everything was on track for the same success that had been achieved in each of the past ten years.

Deborah left the first meeting feeling very good about the process. It was her first time to oversee this, but she had a sterling record in all of her past assignments, and she expected the same in this one.

As she entered her office she was mentally formulating her email going out to all the local schools setting the schedule for the entire process, which had been shortened by two weeks by the National office. Deborah would be working overtime during the next week, but she was prepared to meet all the deadlines.

Deborah checked, double checked, and cross checked every little thing about the exams. Everything had to be perfect when they forwarded the data to the National Education Office in Washington, D.C.

Over the next two weeks, all of the classes in Dallas, from first to eighth grades, took their designated tests. The scores for each grade level were added up in the individual schools, then averaged and forwarded electronically to Deborah's office where they were compiled for a single city score for each grade.

Deborah worked long hours during this whole process. Often she put in fourteen hour days with only minimal help.

After four days of long hours, Deborah was totally exhausted and getting more and more eager to wrap it up, get some rest, and go out and have some fun with her current boyfriend. She had finally found a guy that she was serious about. He was a PhD physicist from Harvard and a great deal of fun as are most physicists. They had met at a New Year's dance and hit it off immediately when they discovered they both loved to rhumba and tango dancing. They were soon engaged and looking forward to getting married in four months.

Just then six emails popped up on her computer, each one from a different school and containing all of those school's test data. She started to put all new data into her database. When this was done she only needed four more schools to provide their data. She had a half day left to finish the job and forward the results to Washington. She could finally see the end of this year's process and she was really, really ready for its conclusion.

As she sat at her computer working on some other things that needed to get done, she slipped into a sound sleep. An hour later she awoke, looked at the clock and pushed the panic button. She had one hour left to finish the report and send the data to Washington D.C., she quickly checked her email finding that the last four schools had submitted their data. She quickly downloaded the data, checked it over quickly, and started to insert it into the database, still in a real panic since she now had only fifteen minutes to submit the whole city's information.

She very quickly started to fill in the final version of the three page report, typing as fast as she could. Finally, with five minutes to go, she completed the form and pushed the send button. Sitting back, she breathed a sigh of relief, shut down the computer, and prepared to go home and catch up on her sleep.

She drove the twenty minutes to home, got cleaned up, put on her pajamas, and jumped into bed. Six hours later she awoke, fixed herself a bowl of cereal, ate it, and went back to bed. Four hours later she awoke again, starting to feel human once more. She fixed another bowl full of cereal and called her fiancé as she ate it. They talked for one and a half hours even though it was four in the morning. Mostly they talked about the wedding and what was needed to be done next.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from The Deborah Project by Donald J. Peacock. Copyright © 2017 Donald J. Peacock. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Edition details

• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Publication date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1524673048
• ISBN 13: 9781524673048
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 108