Careers for Magical Creatures: A Series of Funny Short Stories Read online

  By Sarina Dorie

  Attention Fairy Godmother 23769:

  It has come to the attention of the Division of Fairy Godmothers that you have been spending an inappropriate amount of time with clients on quests, at balls, and at other times not recorded in the Fairy Godmother Log. Upon further investigation, we found a disproportionate amount of time spent with one client in particular, Prince Charming.

  Members of the Charming household were interviewed and it was reported that Prince Charming has been having a furtive affair with an “unidentified damsel” with wings. She has been spotted with him in a carriage and in a hot tub, and exchanging secret notes with him by Harpy Express Mail.

  According to our memo to new employees, which was placed on your desk when you first joined DFG (A Godmother’s Guide to Conduct with Clients), spending personal time with clients is forbidden. Each of these offenses could potentially be considered small infractions. When added up, they attest to a morbid infatuation with a human client and unprofessional behavior. Your claim to be providing tooth fairy services by checking for cavities could be a potential explanation for one such encounter with Prince Charming. However, the recording from the magic mirror, which shows naked trysts in the chocolate fountain after hours with Prince Charming, are not in your favor. Rather than take away your magic, wings, and immortality for this infraction, the Division of Fairy Godmothers has requested the Fairy Council to be merciful. Since you are so fond of checking for cavities, you have been demoted to T.F.S., or Tooth Fairy Services.

  —Submitted by the Committee Against Fairy Fraternization

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  Careers for Magical Creatures: Ten Ways to Keep Your Sucky Job as Tooth Fairy

  By Sarina Dorie

  So you’ve been demoted to tooth fairy? Whether you previously were working as a muse and you let your artist chop off his ear, or you were a fairy godmother caught between the sheets with King Charming, you’ve been demoted to collecting filthy, cavity-riddled teeth for the rest of your days as an immortal. Welcome!

  Follow the guidelines below for a successful career at T.F.S. (Tooth Fairy Services).

  Wear the standard issue uniform with the pink tutu. Other colors are not permitted.

  Give the client one quarter per tooth. Don’t give in to inflation caused by parents who gift their children five dollars.

  Do not pry teeth from dentures, cadavers, or animals in the hopes of turning them in for extra quarters.

  Only collect the teeth of those on your list. Do not stop by Prince Charming’s castle, offering to check for cavities. He doesn’t want to see you; you aren’t his fairy godmother anymore.

  Do not allow clients to rob you of your bags of quarters with a shotgun.

  Avoid other immortals whose jobs are far more important than yours who might also be working at night: Easter Bunnies, Santas, and guardian angels.

  Remember, a tooth fairy is polite, well-mannered and never causes harm to others. Not even the prince who broke up with you when you got demoted.

  Refrain from spending quarters in vending machines.

  While on the job, avoid demons and lower immortals like monsters, vampires, and bogeymen (and bogeywomen) who might want to make out with you in the closet.

  When all else fails, keep in mind there are worse things than being a tooth fairy: toilet fairy, scrape-the-gum-off-shoes-fairy, and mortality. That’s right, you think you have it bad with your sucky existence exchanging quarters for teeth? Imagine life as a human with wrinkles, taxes, and death. That’s what a tooth fairy’s nightmares are made of.

  This list of guidelines was brought to you by your manager at the Tooth Fairy Services, a division of Charming Industries. Now get back to work.

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  Careers for Magical Creatures: The Downward Spiral to Toilet Fairy

  By Sarina Dorie

  Toilet Fairies Inc. Now Hiring!

  So you’ve tried every other occupation in the fairy realm, and you’ve decided you pretty much suck at all of them. Or maybe you’ve tried tooth fairy and you keep spending the quarters at arcades, or you’ve worked as a grim reaper, but hate ferrying whiny souls across to the other side. Sure, there are correspondence schools out there run by Charming Industries, but many immortals aren’t good test takers, and there are few other opportunities for career advancement. Whatever your situation, here you are at a major crossroad in your existence. You have a few choices at this point.

  Option A: Give Up Immortality

  This would involve turning in all magic, leaving the fairy dimension where clouds are made of cotton candy, every day is filled with sparkling crystal castles, rainbows and blue skies, and you have the ability to fly free. If you choose humanity, it means your wings are chopped off, you leave behind friends, and you join the world of mortals. Hello, human diseases, wrinkles, and taxes. If you didn’t excel in a fairy occupation after a thousand years, there’s no guarantee you will excel as a mortal. One in three immortals who resort to mortality die within the first year.

  The ones who survive the first year eventually die too. They are mortals after all.

  Option B: Become a Lower Worlder

  If you don’t want to give up magic and a tax-free lifestyle, and aren’t ready for disease and death, your next option is to try one of the many occupations within the lower dimensions. Because Lower Worlders no longer work with cheery, goody-two-shoes fairy magic that comes from aiding humans, their career path causes them to exist in the darker, muckier energies that make up the spectrum of the fairy realm. The days are a constant gloom of darkness and the nights dismal, dreary, and filled with despair.

  Many of the creatures who exist in the energies of these dimensions perform vital roles in the fairy realm, such as devils who punish deserving humans, banshees who warn mortals of impending death, genies who give humans their just desserts, and used kidney salesmen. Although all of these are necessary jobs, the toll on the psyche of a former cupid or muse who is used to helping humans rather than punishing them can be severe.

  On the other end of the mucky spectrum that makes up the careers of Lower Worlders, are darker creatures who work only to better themselves such as succubi, yokai, and the blood sucking el Cuero. If you’re an immortal who values the humans you serve, consider how choosing this slippery slope might conflict with your values.

  Option C: Keep the Benefits of Immortality and Avoid the Demon Dimension by Becoming a Toilet Fairy!

  What do toilet fairies do? We don’t do shit! Well, actually we do.

  A Toilet Fairy isn’t just a job, it’s a career. Sure you have to hang out in bathrooms all day, but it feels like being a genie—only, one who gets to help grant wishes to the fiber-challenged. We realize you are probably worried about the required token you have to collect from humans as part of the job. Let’s just say not everyone can be Santa and be paid in cookies, but you get used to it. Perks include a fashionable tutu, hygienic rubber gloves, and the ability to bring assistance to deserving humans who have never heard of Ex-lax. Think of yourself as a muse—only one who inspires those wonderful poop factories we call humans.

  Also, you get to remain tax-free for the rest of your immortality. If this sounds like the job for you, contact the Department of Toilet Fairies today!

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  Careers for Magical Creatures: Goddess of Crimson Cosmetics Now Hiring

  By Sarina Dorie

  Tired of being a goody-two-shoes tooth fairy or toilet fairy and getting nowhere in your career for all of eternity? Maybe it’s time for a career change.

  Goddess of Crimson Cosmetics is looking for assets to our sales team. Our line of poisonous cosmetics have primarily been sold by little old women with hunched backs leaning on bamboo canes. We are branching out of our location in Japan and looking for innovative, young sales yokai to welcome to our team. No experience being a demon necessary.

  Additions to our sales team need to be able to:

  *Conduct makeup applications, skin care ana
lysis, and product demonstration with human victims.

  *Stay on top of current promotions, events, and lethal ingredients.

  *Build customer relationships—and quickly destroy them with a single poisonous cosmetic sale.

  *Bring a cheerful disposition for selling beauty and death to mortals.

  *Be able to do occasional heavy lifting of corpses.

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  What the Goddess of Crimson Cosmetics is looking for in our sales representatives:

  *Ability to adhere to a professional dress code: tattered kimono, silver hair, straw umbrella hat, and a hag-like appearance. Bamboo cane optional.

  *At least five years of experience working in a job that exercises verbal communication skills. Examples include: banshees, werewolves, ghouls, madremonte, and used kidney salesmen or saleswomen.

  *Ability to work nights and weekends.

  *Powers of seduction, hypnotism, or persuasion.

  *A passion for bringing harm to vain, materialistic mortals who buy our line of lethal makeup.

  A sales representative for the Goddess of Crimson Cosmetics enjoys flexible hours and low startup costs. There are excellent bonuses for individuals who exceed quotas of death and destruction; we provide product gifts like Absinthe Madness Eyeliner and Blood Flavored Lip Gloss, and we gift our top sales reps with exclusive rewards like a sleigh of pink hellhounds. We encourage free samples given to ALL mortals, the Charming family included.

  Are you looking for a career you might be happy with for all of eternity? Our company has a low turnover rate due to employee satisfaction. If you are seeking an occupation that doesn’t follow the rules of the good fairy realm, if you have a bone to pick with sniveling royalty like Prince or Princess Charming, or if bringing beauty and death to the world sounds like your dream come true, call our toll free number or apply online.

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  The End