Grocery

I work at the grocery store every weekday, sometimes on weekends. It’s a part of a smaller chain, but this building is an experiment to see if they could build a successful superstore. It’s about the size of a regular grocery store, but with a quarter of the staff.

All I can think about as I man the register or help ungrateful, whining customers for minimum wage is all the hopes and dreams I had once. I wanted to be a fine artist. I studied at college in the city for it, and I was quite good. Good grades, great work. But believe it or not, it isn’t easy being a fine artist for a living, and the degree doesn’t come cheap. I have loans to pay now.

I drive to work from my parent’s house, opening at 9 in the morning and coming home at 9 in the evening with sore feet. I walk upstairs to avoid my parents as best I can. Not because I don’t love them, but because I can’t stand the shame. I enter my room, passing by stacks of unsold paintings before I climb into bed.

Every couple of days, three men in their 40s, maybe their 50s, hard to tell because of the beards- ride in on bicycles around the store wearing ragged clothes. They tend to come in during the middle of the day, which lends credence to my theory that they’re probably homeless. They gawk at various products but never buy anything, and then they cycle away again.

I should be used to shame by now, I think to myself as a woman yells at me about getting a refund on a bag of dog food that she used in its entirety while my manager berates me for not cleaning up the spill in aisle 13, which is admittedly hard to do when there’s a line of people at checkout and nobody else on staff that day.

Just then, the homeless guys come cycling in.

As I bag another series of processed foods and cheap shitty wine, I wish that I was one of them.