Free Graverobbers Wanted (No Experience Necessary) by Jeff Strand Page A

voice, as if she were hosting a cooking show.
     
       "Hey, that's all I need in a movie," I said.
     
       "Most of the work is done after the customer has selected their scenario. Technically, one of the scripts could be filmed as-is—it has dialogue and everything. But since we never know where we're going to shoot it, and we can't possibly have a script already prepared for every possible combination of actors, we have to make a lot of small changes on the set. Plus, we're not dealing with professional actors here, so a lot of the time we'll have to tone down some of the dialogue or revise it to make it easier to deliver. Once we had a script comprised of nothing but screams and one line, `Now you die!' And the guy ended up forgetting to say `you.' Suffice it to say that we haven't started rehearsing our Academy Awards speech yet."
     
       "Of course, my loving girlfriend here has justdescribedmy job," said Dominick good-naturedly. "I let her help sometimes, so she occasionally forgets that I'm the one in charge of the script."
     
       "Actually, hedoesn'tlet me help, I bully my way into it," said Linda.
     
       "That's exactly right."
     
       "But he loves a dominant woman."
     
       "I don't remember asking for one at Christmas."
     
       "That's because I wrote up your list for you, being a dominant woman."
     
       "That figures."
     
       "Oh, is my sweetie being sulky? Nobody likes being around a person with a stinky attitude, even if they have a cute little dent in their chin like you."
     
       "If you keep it up, that Roger guy is going to want his throat torn out for real," Dominick told her.
     
       I was getting to that point myself. I was also starting to notice that Dominick smelled kind of weird, but I couldn't identify the scent.
     
       "I'm so sorry, sweetie, did I steal your glory by telling about what you do, with my help? Here, you can tell them what I do now."
     
       "No, that's all right, I wouldn't want you to stop being the center of attention."
     
       "Good." Linda turned back to me. "I do all the set decoration and prop work, except for weapons, which Dominick does."
     
       "What kind of set decoration?" I asked. "Doesn't it take place in people's homes?"
     
       "Usually their homes, or sometimes outdoors.I make sure furniture gets rearranged to fit what we need for the scene, and if the scene calls for somebody to be making cookies, I'll set that up, and stuff like that."
     
       "Doesn't sound like she does much, does it?" asked Dominick. "That might explain why she feels the need to keep invading my territory."
     
       She swatted him playfully on the arm. "I also do the lighting, which is very important in that it allows people to actually see themselves on the videotape."
     
       "Essentially, her job is to go from room to room and find out where all the light switches are," Dominick said. "Once she's done that, she goes back and makes sure that they all operate on the up-for-on, down-for-off principal. Occasionally her job will be made more difficult with a knob instead of a switch, but that's what she makes the big bucks for."
     
       She swatted him again, also playfully but with a hell of a lot more force than last time. "Actually, I work with very large, powerful lights, which I have to set up out of sight of the camera. And I have to make sure that they don't burn down the customer's home, which tends to screw up our chances of a good referral."
     
       "I can see where that would prove problematic." I was still noticing Dominick's aroma, which I suspected was some kind of funky Goth cologne. "This is off the subject," I said, "but what kind of cologne are you wearing?"
     
       Dominick frowned, then lifted his palm to his nose and sniffed. "Oh, that.Catfish ."
     
       "The mighty sportsman was out terminating helpless fish this morning," said Linda. "Those manly impulses get the best of him sometimes. Normally he