"What I'm saying, is, if you don't have a paid staff member in the building at night, you're not only violating company policy, but you risk losing all of your liability insurance, " Jacob Raus, a balding little man in a fussy grey flannel suit carrying a briefcase paused as they clattered down the back hallway towards the loading dock that opened into the alley, "You could lose everything, and we wouldn't want that, would we now, Mr. Henry?"

"But I can't keep night staff. Everybody I've ever hired, even temps, don't last more than a night or two. Some of them even walk off the job before the shift ends – without even bothering to clock out first!" Mr. Henry pulled out a set of keys from his grease-stained jacket pocket, "If I can just have a warm body, somebody with a pulse, on night shift until the end of the month, I'll be in the clear!" He shoved a key into the lock of the back door beside the bigger door that led out onto the loading dock, turned it, and pushed open the dented steel door, upon which somebody had sloppily scrawled in Sharpie, "Carlton smells like feet!" at about knee height.

The "C" was backwards.

"Feet" was spelled with an "ea", but anybody reading got the gist right away.

Anyway…

There was a bit of resistance followed by a thud and an "Oof, bloody 'ell!" when the head-mechanic and part owner of Sunnydale's newest kiddie theme restaurant gave a bit of a shove as the door suddenly opened into the dumpster smelling alley which led to "Parts and Service".

"Even someone from the downtown Sunnydale homeless shelter, if they're not too dirty or crazy, will do, Mr. Henry. All you need is a warm body and you won't be violating the terms of your company's liability insurance – just five nights until your current policy expires, and then the new policy will kick in — you'll be home free!" the company's in-house lawyer gestured, "Just five nights, is all!"

"Right." Mr. Henry sighed, hands in pockets as he stood on the edge of the loading dock staring moodily out towards the street at the end of the shadowy alley, waiting for the parts truck from corporate to arrive, "Five nights, a warm body, and the new policy … are you sure that's all it'll take? Things have been shaky since that "little" incident last month got into the newspapers. Customers are planning their kid's parties without us, and investors are dropping us like hot potatoes."

"I assure you, as a representative for the law firm of Wolfrum & Hart, this will blow over." Raus paused in mid-glasses polish, "We represented the White Star Line after the Titanic incident in 1912, and presided over their liquidation in 1932, what can possibly go wrong?"

"I don't like it, but what choice do I have?" Mr. Henry noticed a young man, maybe early twenties, with what looked like bleached hair picking himself up off the ground at the end of the loading dock, a drop of about six feet, "Hey, kid, need a job?"