Working Retail
by B.J. Keeton

I felt a tap on my shoulder and heard a grunt. I stood up from straightening the endcap of blank DVDs, and put on my best smile. If I had learned nothing else from nearly four years of working at MediaTown, it was that I never sold a single laptop, flat-screen TV, or Elton John boxed-set if I didn’t greet everyone who wanted my attention with a smile.

Sometimes it was all I could do to make the smile touch my eyes, but it still counted as a smile. That day, I was in a pretty good mood. I was getting paid at the end of my shift, and for the first time in my life, I was going to be able to pay something off. Two somethings, actually. I had made some stupid decisions since I had graduated college, the worst of which involved living off a high-interest credit card and buying a new car a month after graduating. In my defense, I had been promised a cushy programming job at a tech firm in the fall, and I thought as long as I could live through the summer, I’d be okay. But that was the summer of the outbreak, and while I-and my accrued debt-lived through the summer, the firm didn’t. On top of regular living expenses-rent, utilities, gas, and so on-those decisions made money a little tight in my neck of the woods. Read More→