Don’t Shake On It

“I’m so sorry I’m tardy,” The Devil apologized as he strode into the living room.

As always, he was wearing an impeccably tailored suit, but today, it was covered in lint and dust, which was clearly driving my guest insane.

“What happened to your suit?” I asked as I did my best to fight off the smile that so badly wanted to form on my face.

“This always happens whenever I spend time in Human Resources,” Lucifer growled as he snapped his fingers and a lint roller magically appeared in his hand.

As he groomed himself in the middle of the room, I mentally debated as to which of my many questions I should ask first.

I decided to go with: “Hell has an HR Department?”

The Prince of Darkness stopped lint rolling to look at me like I had three heads.  “Of course it does.  There’s an entire ring of Hell that is just one huge maze of various bureaucratic offices.  What is considered Hell on Earth is even more Hellish in Hell!”

“Just knowing that is enough to keep me on the path of the straight and narrow,”  I chuckled as I grabbed a Snapple out of the cooler.  “Why is the place so dusty?”

That one earned me a roll of the eyes.

“Why would I send a cleaning crew to that ring of Hell?” Satan asked with some sass.  “I want the Damned to be as miserable as possible.  Unfortunately, that means having to occasionally sacrifice a suit to the cause.  Just one of the many reasons I avoid HR as much as possible.”

“So what dragged you to that corner of Hell today?” I pressed with a smirk.

“I had to give a deposition in a case brought about by one of the Damned, who claims I cheated him out of his eternal soul,” The Devil grumbled as he finally made the lint roller vanish and then walked over to sit on the couch.

The statement caught me so much by surprise that I almost dropped my precious bottle of iced tea.  Luckily, my hands are as quick as my mind.

“The people in Hell can sue you?” I asked with so much confusion in my voice that it almost drowned out the actual words.

Lucifer shook his head sadly and sighed.  He grabbed a Snapple out of the cooler and chugged half the bottle before he replied.

“Lawyers make up the highest percentage of my population,” he informed me with a weariness in his tone.  “There are just too many of them, and they kept demanding cases to help kill the time.  The Damned started going to them and filing suits against me without my knowledge.  In the end, it was easier to just let them have their weird little legal system.  It’s not like they are going to get released, so it’s fun to watch them work so hard for nothing in return.”

“What was this case about?”  I was riveted to my very first episode of Law & Order: Hell.

“Some new arrival claims that I cheated him when I made the deal for his soul,” The Prince of Darkness shared with a hint of mischief in his black eyes.

“Well, did you?” I cross examined.

“It’s a deal with me.  Not exactly the fairest of all business deals,” Satan chuckled. “However, I did give him exactly what he asked.  It’s not my fault that he worded his request the way he did.”

Now a devilish grin danced across his handsome face.

“Tell me…”  I sipped my Snapple and awaited the details.

“He was recently divorced and pledged his eternal soul in return for his ex-wife never finding love for the rest of his life,” The Devil spoke in a clipped manner, as if he were on the witness stand.  “He went on to add that she could find a hundred lovers as soon as he was gone, but as long as he was alive, she had to be all alone.  Then he said he was joining a gym the next day so that he could get into the best shape of his life and live forever.”

I shook my head in disbelief.

“Let me guess.  The second he shook on the deal and signed away his soul, he unexpectedly keeled over and died.”

“Unexpected only to him,” Lucifer quipped.

“You can be a real prick,” I told him because it was the truth.

“No,” he corrected me.  “I can be The Prince of Darkness whenever I damn well please.  If they can’t handle the consequences, they shouldn’t shake on the deal.”

Keep that in mind before you make a deal with The Devil!