But at the moment, that didn’t look likely. If he couldn’t get a few hundred rolls of…

“We’re leaving in a week,” Weaver said, as patiently as he could, to the woman on the other side of the counter. “If we don’t have these supplies, experience tells me that our mission is going to go from possible to difficult if not impossible.”

“Well, you’re not getting them,” the distribution clerk said, clicking her tongue. “For one thing, you’re over budget on this class of item. For another, you’re asking for our entire stock. I need to ensure that there’s some for others, you know.”

If she clicked her tongue one more time, Weaver was going to go all postal on her fat ass. She used that annoying tongue click as a grammatical mark. At the end of each sentence, “click,” each comma point, “click.” He’d been dealing with her for the last two months and he was going to strangle her if she didn’t stop…

“This material is very expensive you know (click). And the last two times that your boat went out (click) you used up nearly your entire stock (click). You need to learn some supply discipline, Captain (click).

Weaver tried to stop, but he was beginning to flinch in anticipation of her finishing a sentence. He felt like a hound dog that had been beat too much, no good for sniffin’ nor treein’.

“And that is your final answer?” Bill asked, flinching at the fact that he’d actually asked for a reply. He’d encouraged her to…

“That is my final answer (click!). Unless you get a budget variance and authorization to entirely deplete the stock (click) the amount you’ve already drawn is the maximum you will be allowed (Click!).”