Holder of Masters degree made regularly to lift heavy boxes at work. Friends tell her she should say no. Feels like she’s paid her dues and shouldn’t have to: been waiting tables or whatever since fifteen. At one point, managed receiving dock (but she called it something else) at a Barnes & Noble.
Attendant, reflecting on day, realized he hadn’t seen the Salvadorian car painter in a few months.Attendant “really upset” by his personal defects in the morning — stupid passive creep — then worked a lot for twelve hours, and it no longer mattered. (He had “earned being the way he was,” he drunkenly diagnosed.)Attendant “felt pang of despair”: what he had just cleaned is suddenly littered afresh; is “total chaos”: uncapped jugs, opened bags, multiple spills, infinite crumbs…. Attendant “felt despair”: that person who always orders the least convenient thing at the least convenient time and never shows any appreciation or leaves a tip yet is obviously a kind and even uniquely admirable person has just walked in….. Despair, he calls it: “I need a second to a regroup, I’ve needed one for an hour or two, now another customer walks in. That chime!”Customer’s nominee for President would be Justin Amash. Customer confided she’d gotten “encasements” on her bed.
.i`` * ^ / . . . . . ` `~ 