{"id":49,"date":"2026-02-07T09:00:20","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T09:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/antagonist.blog\/?p=49"},"modified":"2026-02-07T09:00:20","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T09:00:20","slug":"saturday-february-7th-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/antagonist.blog\/?p=49","title":{"rendered":"Saturday, February 7th, 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Saturday, February 7th, 2026<\/p>\n<p>Dear Diary,<\/p>\n<p>Weekend shifts are always weird. Half the staff, twice the chaos.<\/p>\n<p>This morning&#8217;s emergency: Someone (Minion #23, I&#8217;m 87% sure) accidentally locked themselves in the shark tank observation tunnel. The sharks were very interested. The minion was very not interested.<\/p>\n<p>It took forty-five minutes and three security overrides to get him out. He&#8217;s fine. The sharks are disappointed.<\/p>\n<p>The Boss suggested we &#8222;improve signage.&#8220; I suggested we improve hiring standards. We compromised: both.<\/p>\n<p>The Weather Dominator is still broken. Now it&#8217;s producing fog. Specifically over our own facility. We can&#8217;t see the parking lot. Two deliveries have been canceled because the drivers &#8222;couldn&#8217;t find the entrance.&#8220;<\/p>\n<p>The engineers swear they&#8217;re &#8222;close to a breakthrough.&#8220; They&#8217;ve been saying that for three days.<\/p>\n<p>Henrik brought his kids to work today. Apparently, his wife had an emergency and childcare fell through. Three small humans, ages 4-9, running around a supervillain lair.<\/p>\n<p>The 4-year-old asked why we have so many &#8222;zappy things.&#8220; Henrik said we&#8217;re &#8222;in the security industry.&#8220; The kid nodded solemnly and said, &#8222;My dad fights bad guys.&#8220;<\/p>\n<p>Close enough, kid.<\/p>\n<p>They spent two hours in the break room drawing pictures. One of them drew Mr. Whiskers. It&#8217;s surprisingly accurate, including the judgmental expression. The Boss asked if he could keep it. It&#8217;s now framed in his office.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m starting to think this organization is softer than it looks.<\/p>\n<p>The sentient jello offered to &#8222;babysit&#8220; (jello-sit?) Henrik&#8217;s kids. I politely declined. Raspberry looked offended but wobbled away with dignity.<\/p>\n<p>At lunch, one of the engineers mentioned that J.W. wasn&#8217;t on shift. Henrik said something about &#8222;family stuff&#8220; and everyone nodded knowingly. I didn&#8217;t ask for details. Everyone deserves privacy.<\/p>\n<p>Though someone started a betting pool about why he&#8217;s out. The leading theory is &#8222;vacation.&#8220; The second theory is &#8222;witness protection.&#8220; The third is &#8222;finally snapped and joined the good guys.&#8220;<\/p>\n<p>I shut down the betting pool. Partially because it&#8217;s unprofessional. Mostly because I have no idea which theory is correct.<\/p>\n<p>Minion #47 was on time today. EARLY, even. He brought cookies. Home-baked. They&#8217;re actually good.<\/p>\n<p>When I complimented them, he just shrugged and said, &#8222;Had some free time. Needed to bake.&#8220;<\/p>\n<p>The man is an enigma wrapped in pajama pants.<\/p>\n<p>This evening, I found The Boss in the command center staring at the global surveillance feeds. Not doing anything evil. Just&#8230; watching. City lights. Traffic patterns. Normal human life.<\/p>\n<p>&#8222;Ever wonder what it&#8217;s like?&#8220; he asked. &#8222;The normal life?&#8220;<\/p>\n<p>&#8222;Sometimes,&#8220; I admitted.<\/p>\n<p>&#8222;Me too,&#8220; he said quietly. Then he stood up, adjusted his cape, and said, &#8222;But then I remember normal people don&#8217;t have seventeen death rays.&#8220;<\/p>\n<p>Fair point.<\/p>\n<p>Tomorrow: hopefully fixing the Weather Dominator, possibly investigating the mysterious dry ice, definitely figuring out what that smell in Sector 7 is.<\/p>\n<p>Contemplative but pragmatic,<br \/>\nMrs. Clawdia<\/p>\n<p>*P.S. \u2014 Henrik&#8217;s kids left drawings for everyone. Mine says &#8222;Best Boss Lady.&#8220; I&#8217;m keeping it forever.*<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Saturday, February 7th, 2026 Dear Diary, Weekend shifts are always weird. Half the staff, twice the chaos. This morning&#8217;s emergency: Someone (Minion #23, I&#8217;m 87% sure) accidentally locked themselves in the shark tank observation tunnel. The sharks were very interested. The minion was very not interested. It took forty-five minutes and three security overrides to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/antagonist.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/antagonist.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/antagonist.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antagonist.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antagonist.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/antagonist.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50,"href":"https:\/\/antagonist.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions\/50"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/antagonist.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antagonist.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antagonist.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}