ReTales

This document will update periodically as needed. - Eleanor ~ ~ ~ Rule #1 - Above all else-- If you think you're better than someone because of the difference in money you and that someone make, don't ever leave the house . -No storytelling unless you have a long-process transaction in which to tell stories. -No checks, WIC, exact change, or other long-process transactions on Express. (We may be able to open another line for people with WIC, however.) -Regarding bills over $10 – most drawers do not open with twenties in them. Do not use bills larger than tens before 11 AM. Do not use bills larger than twenties before 1. Do not use large bills for small orders, especially during the holidays. We will be accommodating if you do not have a bank account but if there is a debit card in your wallet, you have a bank account, and you should break your big bills there.  -Also, while many stores offer a cash-back function, don't use it. Ever. It is...

At home, using a bit of register tape she'd taken before clocking out, she began to work on The Book. The Book of Rules, which she hoped would provide hope and illumination to cashiers the world over. Okay, definitely not that far—she had no idea how to distribute it, for one thing—but she could do something for herself at the very least, and doing something was better than nothing. There was no organization in mind, but she wanted it to be for cashiers and customers alike. Advice and hard truths all in one—rather like Murphy's Laws of Combat Operations but for this new field of war. She was hardly the first cashier to compare the positions of retail clerk and soldier—though like all things in talking about this stuff it had to be delivered with a little tittering laugh at the end. No one ever died in retail, not really. But soldiers die in more ways than just in the body, and many cashiers died the same way. They still stared those thousand yards. They still came home broken ...

Eleanor never got a good grasp on how she got into these things. She'd sent out so many applications, however, that it was only a matter of time before she found herself caught in this unique state of helplessly staring into the strange pale light which seemed to come off her computer. It was a glow independent of the monitor's normal light; the site she was on had a really weird cyan background. It entranced her—but almost anything on the web would entrance her at 2 AM. Against all the other app sites, so gray and lifeless, this one was like a field of sunflowers. She remembered sunflowers. Sun Valley. Maybe that's what made her remember the sunflowers. They were a grocery store, and they were close—she always shopped at Cub but she'd failed the interview when she confessed she couldn't come in at 4. Never mind that she was up at 2. 2:30, actually—she could do these apps in her sleep, perhaps literally now, and it had only taken her thirty minutes. None of ...

Don't think I didn't see you. It was like this: two old folks come down my line, husband and wife. The wife leads, because this is The Store, and the men always hang back and do nothing, save for stare at other women. (They handle the "challenge" of running the credit card. Which I do for them.) I saw her unload your cart, and I saw her take care of smiling for you. You were the same as all the others, so maybe I didn't see you at first. But I think it was that lack of smile that betrayed you. You idiot, the smile keeps me pacified! It keeps the cloak up! It makes me think you've maybe got something ticking in that chest of yours! But now the deception was down, and I saw you. Is that why you did it? Because you thought I was disrespecting you, with this unspoken stream of thoughts? Then you should not have done what you did. "Why don't you go ahead and bag?" A fair recommendation. She asked nicely . She was a very nice woman. "Mrn...

One day, I'm going to get out of here, and I will not care about the money. And one day, when I have no money, I will give no money to my loans and to my pain, and one day they'll jail me for defaulting. And one day I will get out, and I will still give no money to those loans and to that pain, and one day, they will throw back in again. And one day I will get out, and I will still give no money to them, and to IT. And one day, they'll throw me back again, and one day I'll die in jail. And I'll smile, and I'll give them no money no longer.

These lines are my vow—that by the stony centuries I am lost to, your sins will not be forgotten—I will not let history bring comfort to your bones after you took comfort from my friends and I. You chose to waste your great potential, and now your failure lunges back like an angry lion. Do not act surprised—it is only life, the life you said yourself was hard, when those words were convenient to you. You believed this life was only yours—only yours, guaranteed not by the merits you claimed to judge others by, but because of all the people of this world, you thought you were the best. ~ Lutum Hominus, 13 th Century Monk