I don't want to say I hate working retail, but if hell has a checkout line, I've probably managed it. Today's apocalypse? A woman with a designer bag, a fake tan that can stain marble, and a face that screams "I've written at least three Facebook posts about rude employees." I've named her Karen 3.0. She's holding one of our scent diffusers like it personally ruined her life.
"This made my cat vomit," she says, horrified.
Honestly? Same.
I stare at her, blinking slowly through the fog of a hangover and the subtle stench of artificial lemon. I am not equipped for this level of drama before lunch. Or ever.
"Did the cat consume it?"
"No."
"Apply it directly to its skin?"
"Of course not!"
I lean on the counter, every inch of me done with this timeline. "So… it just smelled bad?"
"It smelled dangerous!"
"Ma'am," I say, voice flat, "unless your cat is a vampire with lemon-scented trauma, I don't think I can help you."
She gasps, scandalized. Like I've kicked a baby. Somewhere in the distance, I hear Chad, my manager and spiritual nemesis, gasp in harmony. I don't look at him, I'm too focused on the fact that this woman just put the diffuser on the counter… and then flicked it at me.
"I demand a refund," she says.
"I demand equal pay and for my coffee to never taste of burnt regret again, but here we are."
That's when the scent diffuser meets its demise. It slips from my hand, a tragic, purely accidental incident that definitely wasn't caused by me palming it like a grenade, and crashes to the floor. Glass. Goop. The ghost of citrus. All of it, splattered like a bad ex across tile, time and her fancy loafers.
Silence. Then, Chad's panicked sprinting footsteps.
"That's it," he pants, pointing his gross sausage finger at me. "You're fired, Frankie."
"Oh no," I say with zero emotion. "Anyway."
I pull off my name tag with a dramatic flourish, flip it like a poker chip into the lemon-scented crime scene, and walk out the door before Karen can weaponize Yelp.
I get halfway down the street before the adrenaline crashes and I realize two things:
I haven't eaten since yesterday's gas station sushi experiment.
My bank balance has more zeros than my dating app inbox.
Back at my apartment, if you can call a glorified shoebox with questionable plumbing and a smell I've stopped investigating an "apartment", I collapse onto my mattress on the floor. The springs creak, judging me. They're not wrong.
I kick off my boots, strip off my hoodie, and scream into my pillow.
This isn't even my worst Tuesday.
When the muffled screaming loses its charm, I roll onto my back and grab my phone off the windowsill. It's cracked, grimy, and currently displaying four unread notifications: two from my bank (rude), one from a number I haven't (probably Chad), and one from my mother, that just says,
"Have you considered selling feet pics?"
Delete. Delete. Emotional delete.
I open a job board app with the same energy as someone re-downloading Tinder after a breakup. It's all pyramid schemes and jobs with the words "vibrant sales environment," which we all know means unpaid trauma with a dress code.
I scroll. And scroll. And scroll. Somewhere between "dog psychic assistant" and "energy drink ambassador (must wear costume)," I find one.
IMMEDIATE HIRE. GREAT PAY. LOVES KIDS A PLUS.
Suspicious? Yes. But also? My standards are currently six feet under and holding hands with my dignity.
No company name. No job description. Just an address, and an offer of surprisingly high hourly pay. Like, actually could afford food high. It's giving "possibly a front for something illegal," but what isn't, these days?
I click Apply.
There's no application form. No CV required. Just a confirmation message that pops up and says:
'See you at 7am. Bring snacks.'
Okay then.
I toss my phone onto the floor and let my arm flop dramatically over my face. I should probably feel worried. I don't. I feel… weirdly calm. The kind of calm that comes right before doing something incredibly stupid.
I stare at the ceiling. The crack in the plaster looks vaguely like a wolf. I blink. It doesn't move.
Too much gas station sushi, definitely.
Still, something about the job, vague, reckless, promising chaos, it buzzes under my skin like a caffeine high or a warning. My gut says, Don't go.
My rent says, Try me, bitch.
I groan and roll off the mattress, already regretting my entire existence. I dig through the floor-drobe for something clean-ish to wear tomorrow. Hoodie. Leggings. Something with pockets. I consider brushing my hair, then don't.
I spend the rest of the night drinking flat soda from a mug labeled "World's Okayest Employee" and watching reruns of a reality show where people marry strangers in pods. Honestly, those strangers might be making better life choices than me right now.
At exactly 2:37am, I wake up in a sweat from a dream about lemon diffusers and Karen wielding a mop like a battle axe. I stare at the ceiling again.
The wolf-shaped crack is still there.
It's smiling now.