Carleton arrived at the office Christmas party sporting a black eye.

“How’d you get that shiner?” his boss asked.

“Boxing Day,” Carleton said.

“But that isn’t until the twenty-sixth and has nothing to do with fighting.”

“Tell that to the shopper who thought I’d blocked him from a doorbuster deal.”

John H. Dromey had a 725-word story, Hunger Gamesmanship, posted on the Stupefying Stories Showcase website on November 4, 2014.