A Thursday

The day had already started out cursed when the night before I realized that I had to work two hours earlier than I thought. Thank the gods I had looked at my planner before going to bed but realized I would only get about six hours of sleep. We’ve all had that feeling though, haven't we? You think you know when to show up for work and thus plan your bedtime schedule accordingly and just before you call it a night, gracious serendipity allows you to double check the time you start your shift and that’s when you think, “oh bugger”. It’s a blessing to catch that before actually waking up late and showing up way past when you should but nevertheless, you go to bed with that fear and stressed feeling. And that’s exactly what I did.
And so the day actually begins. As I go about my morning routine, I have to mentally hype myself up whilst simultaneously finding inner peace and tranquility in preparation of the unknown chaos ahead. 
Now, walking into the drug store is a crucial time to gather visual intelligence on what the rest of the day might look like. I scout out how many customers are currently wandering the aisles, how many are lined up at the front till. Is there a backup cashier currently serving the masses as well? I do all of this on my dreaded walk to the staff room. My eyes dart back and forth taking in the entire layout of the premises, my earbuds play some calming, subdued tunes to keep me at ease. 
As I make my way to my locker, I arm myself as if for battle: Xacto knife in one pocket, fancy ink pen I claimed as my own in the other, wee notebook with all the codes and cheats I need to operate my till because I will be damned before I call a supervisor for help and face the loathing customer I’ve had to put on hold. I fill up my water bottle since it’s the only way to remove my mask to breathe after running around like a lunatic to help seven people at once. I keep my knee brace in my locker for I already slathered both knees with A535 rub and jammed insoles into my shoes. With my till and lottery counted, I am ready to head out to face my doom.
I realized that I had jinxed myself when I thought it was rather quiet. Satan decided to pay me a visit and ensure the entirety of the island decided to grace this singular drug store with their presence. Now, whilst seniors day is generally absurdly busy, especially when they’re receiving bonus points for the last Thursday of the month, today it was just insane. I was bound to my till for five hours straight. The flood of people was never ending. Adrenaline gradually kicked in as I continuously leapt over the bagging section of my till to help incapable consumers on the self checkout and back again to help impatient consumers at my counter. I found myself evolving into a god. I flew from my till to the self checkout, to random aisles to confirm that the customer doesn’t know how to read, to the till again so I could rapidly print up lottery tickets that were destined to lose. 
All the while the crimson tide from my uterus is threatening to overthrow the plug I put in to keep it at bay and situate itself into my pad. This was an unappreciated portion of the day. It became a race against my own body. Would I make it until my lunch break that was planned at 2:30 or would the power of my reproductive system claim victory. It was the latter. Leaving the poor back up cashier on his own, I went to replug my leak and recollect myself in the time it took to do that. When I returned, the line had multiplied. There were two now as everyone had merged to be served by the remaining cashier. I was  forced to do a speed round to clear away the new line without making the main line commit mutiny, enhancing my godlike abilities all the more. Caffeine fails to work on me, but how my mind grew to function in those moments, I’m assuming that sensation was similar to what those who have chugged four coffees are like. I was hyper, high on the chaos of having an unending hoard of customers. My knees were suffering, there was a terrible pain in my neck, my stomach was bloated to the extent that I could pass off being some five months pregnant and the line never ended. 
Take note, the entire time I was losing brain cells at a concerningly fast rate, my customer service was as pleasant as ever. I managed to convince everyone I served that I was a cheerful young lass with an abundance of patience and sanity. If only they knew that I just told them to take their time so I could take my own time to bury another portion of my mental wellbeing that died inside. 
To make matters even more peachy, my lunch break ended up being a half hour late. I was on total autopilot at that time. My brain was completely gone by 2:00. All I could think about was that I was not supposed to still be here. I was supposed to be eating chilli and not enduring an endless surge of middle aged yahoos that all thought they were so unique and funny when they rang the little bell at my till while I was scanning their seven jugs of milk because the sign said to ring for service. It was almost surreal by the time I was relieved to go disappear into the staff room and…
Find that the lock on my locker was completely jammed and would no longer unlock. My embarrassingly bland chilli and hoodie that I planned to hide in both kept hostage within the metal cube like prisoners. The gods were mocking me at this point. I was blessed enough to have a work friend, who I was going to eat with, buy me lunch in the food court we were now allowed to go back to. Alas when I had twenty minutes left of my sacred hour of escape, I had to find assistance to release my belongings from my deceased lock.
It took some tries, but a manager finally succeeded in cracking the lock open with a screwdriver and hammer. As wonderful as this was, the stress of having thought I was forever barred from my bike and house keys was not a welcome feeling on top of all the rest of my unwelcome feelings that had accumulated throughout the day. And I still had two hours to go.
As it was when I left, the behemoth amount of humans were still filling the store. There had in fact been a small lineup outside the building when I came back from the main part of the mall. My computer was desperately protesting by glitching every two seconds, forcing me to click the same three buttons over and over again in an attempt to unfreeze it. I just wanted to go home. 
There was no calm until there was. 
Right when the evening cashier came to trade places. The moment she arrived, the line was no more. There was peace and quiet. The store appeared abandoned, there was such a lack of customers. All the torment I had dwelled in dissipated as soon as I no longer had to dwell in it. The mockery was at it’s finest in that moment.
And so the day had ended for me. I walked like a weary soldier coming home from war to the staff room to count my till. My body and mind had aged six decades over the course of the day. I was the senior I had spent hours serving as I hobbled to collect my backpack from my now open and exposed locker and bid my fellow survivors of the day farewell. At least Fridays are the antithesis of this ridiculousness.

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