Emma La Douce - by Rick

They had nothing to say to each other. Paris said all there was to say for them. Emma and Bert stood there at the top of the Eiffel Tower, transfixed by the beauty of Paris at dusk as it became The City of Light. Just to be here had been their lifetime dream for close to 50 years. Emma and Bert had come out of the theatre so many years ago after watching Irma La Douce. They had laughed themselves silly and were enjoying an A & W root beer float together when Emma sighed and said, “Let’s go to Paris someday.” to which Bert replied, “Ok but only if we’re married.” to which Emma replied, “Oh Bert, of course I’ll marry you.” which is how Bert proposed to Emma. But I’m starting to wander.

Their adventure begins in the networking cells of Freddy’s Fritters, one of the first fast food franchises to open up way back in the 50’s. Freddy’s Fritters was one of the success stories up there with McDonalds and KFC and Arthur had some time to kill before he knocked off for the day. A curious chap was Arthur, who loved nothing more than to tweek the computer systems of Freddy’s Fritters by day and surf the ‘net by night. Today he was curious as to who was the longest lasting employee of Freddy’s Fritters. Luckily for him, Freddy’s Fritters had computerised their entire company all the way back to it’s origins in 1959 and he soon found out that an Emma Burke, employee number 000201, had received her first pay cheque in June, 1959, and had received her latest deposit just 4 days ago. Considering that the average duration of an employee at Freddy’s Fritters was 16.3 months, this was beyond amazing. (He did some more research and found that the runner-up for longevity had “only” been with Freddy’s Fritters for 27 years, 2 months, 4 days.

Well Arthur thought this was amazing and sent out an email about his findings to some of his workmates and as the grapevine did its thing, the email found itself on the desk of Willard, one of the quality control inspectors for FF. Willard’s job was to anonymously visit a number of FF stores every month to see if the quality of product and service was up to FF standards. (It usually was). Turns out that this Emma Burke (now Emma Wertz) was working on one of the outlets that he visited that week. As he placed his order, he got into a casual conversation with Emma and found out that indeed she had been with FF since 1959, had met her husband Bert when he bought some donuts from her in 1962 and had pretty much been on staff ever since. Of course Willard couldn’t let on that he knew anything about her so he took his snack and left.

But he didn’t leave without an idea germinating. Something had to be done to acknowledge Emma for this service. Someone important had to know. So Willard sent off and email to the president of FF, to Frederick Garfield II, the son of the founder of FF who took over from Dad 10 years ago. Freddy 2, as he was known to his staff, sent back an email saying “Great idea. What do you have in mind?”

Well Willard had something great in mind. Emma had mentioned to Willard that she and Bert had always wanted to visit Paris, but that it didn’t look like their financial situation would ever allow for it. “Well don’t give up on that dream,” Willard said to her as he paid her for his order.

The emails flew back and forth between Willard and Freddy 2 and two weeks later Emma just about fainted as Freddy 2 and Bert came into her outlet along with some people from the newspapers and TV. Freddy 2 made a fine presentation to her with a plaque commemorating her 50 years, a cheque for $25,000 and a voucher for 2 for two weeks in Paris, France all expenses paid.

The security guard came up to Emma and Bert and informed them that the Tower was about to close and could they please make their way to the lift to exit.

Bert gave Emma’s hand an extra squeeze and as they headed towards the lifts said “And to think I almost went to McDonalds instead that day.”