helium

"Hey Kristin!" giggled Kelly gleefully, as she saw her long-time colleague enter the Gap store.

"Hi Kelly," replied Kristin, walking casually over to the checkout. Her shift wasn't due to start for another ten minutes and she wanted to catch up on the latest info.

"So, what's been going on?" she continued.

"Oh, the usual," said Kelly with a mischievous smile. "Nothing exciting. Oh, but there is something I want to show you!"

The Hubbell Research Group had been a frantic hive of activity for several weeks.  Five years was a long time to be idle, and the staff was straining to handle the volume of leads that Barney was producing.  But even with so much work to be done, nobody commented when Jack came in on Friday morning with his usual stack of tabloids.

"Hey Barney."

"Hey Jack."

"The Dog Boy got engaged to the Turtle Girl," he said, flipping through The Snoop.

"I'm certain that will be a fascinating wedding registry.  Anything in the headlines jump out at you?"

Gavin knew he shouldn't complain. With the economy in its current state, he was lucky to be able to find a summer job, and it wasn't unusual for parents to require their kids to work as a condition of car and party privileges. He just wished he could have found something in the IT field, as opposed to making balloon animals for snot-nosed kids. The pay was lousy, the costume and makeup were hot and heavy, the locker room smelled terrible, and every popped balloon meant a crying child and an irate parent yelling in his face.