When I first met my boss, Miranda Priestly 2.0, her voice was as soothing as a bubbling brook that could calm the most uptight of people. Seriously, if you were on a flight being hijacked by terrorists and you happen to be sitting next to MP II, you’d actually be glad to be there. Despite her criminal dress sense but never being incarcerated, (yet! – do read on), Miranda came across as a soft and nurturing friend. However, as the weeks went by, in my new employ as her executive assistant, the varnish soon wore thin, as a rather acidulous undercurrent became apparent.
The awakening came one morning, after I had just received a phone call from a dear friend, inviting me to meet her and her husband in Europe for the summer, which incidentally, was in seven months’ time – plenty of time to process my leave application and for MP II to hire a temp to cover my position. Feeling a mixture of relief and reward, as well as a damn good reason to travel overseas, I walked with a little spring in my step to MP II’s office, whilst watching the ink dry on my application for time off.
Her immediate reply was, “Oh, that’s wonderful”. Within a microsecond I was envisioning dusting off the suitcase and requesting my seat allocation on-line. A further microsecond later, the clincher came, “but I can’t let you go, as we have the new CEO starting with us at that time!”, as she exhaled. Feeling pangs of disappointment and flattery, that Miranda would want me around to welcome the new CEO, I resided myself to the fact that I would probably have to wait another year or so, to meet my friends in some other cosmopolitan city in the world.
Being her only assistant, I had access to her E-Mails and of course needed to read them, to keep her on track with the daily banter of the other executives and the many confidential issues to hand.
Whilst toiling through a stack of paper that MP II had placed in my In tray and trying to eat lunch at the same time, an E-Mail punctuated my In Box with the subject heading of “Flights”. I had booked Miranda on some interstate flights, for a conference that she was to speak at in the coming weeks. However, to my absolute shock and disbelief, the contents of the E-Mail did not reveal the destination of Los Angeles, but Paris!!!. The piece de resistance came when I read the dates, which were exactly the same as the ones I had requested earlier that month. Basically, Miranda had gone and booked exactly the same flights as I was not allowed to book, due to her supposed need of me in the office at that time.
The anger soon dissipated into a warm feeling with regards to the head-on-collision, between my car and a small goods van, I almost had that morning on the highway. That way, it would have been a great excuse to have time off.
After these thoughts finally subsided, along with the thought of crushing 200 Panadol tablets, into fine white powder, and planting them in the lining of her luggage, in little plastic bags, I made my way to the gym. After a 5 mile run and twenty minutes punching the punch bag, I decided to simply, “let it go”. Thus, looking on the positive side of her not being in the office; a vacation in itself.
As the weeks went by without Miranda, I felt a sense of calmness and was thinking that all turned out for the best. Unbeknown to me, though, she was unable to climb the Eiffel Tower; was unable to see the Louvre and walk down the Champs-Elysées. She was, in fact, unable to leave Charles de Gaulle Airport. Not because of an aircraft handlers strike or the loss of her baggage, but because of her simple pig-headedness. Miranda had an assistant do everything for her from help her back the car out of her parking space to formulate professional looking presentations. However, if she had an assistant book her flights, that assistant would have booked a return flight. The authorities took one look at the one-way ticket to Paris and surmised that Miranda was there to work, illegally, and not return to the United States.
Sporting her usual passive/aggressive arrogant tone did not go down well with the French authorities either, who thought that she was not only treating them with contempt, but lying through her teeth. After narrowly escaping a cavity search, she was then interrogated for a number of hours and then securely detained in a locked room at Charles de Gaulle Airport before being deported, swiftly, back to whence she came. Of course, the whole process would have been conducted with the utmost of class and decorum, I am sure, on behalf of the French authorities.
She was then to spend the next two and a half days travelling back to New York, via Tokyo, cramped up in the economy class section of a 747; the crew’s dulcet tones of “Chicken or Steak” permeating throughout the cabin. Poor dear!
- Submitted by Lindan
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