Runner-up | Re: Choosing Joy, Love and OSHA Violations

When my boss tells me he wants to meet with me, I figure it has something to do with the piss on the wall. It is not my piss, mind you, or for that matter my wall. The wall belongs to the store, a pretty thing, conveniently located between a downtown train stop and an underfunded methadone clinic. The store sells stationery and the uncomfortable decorative pillows that I love and my roommate hates. It also sells self-help books, none of which dare address the topic of working at what the company has taken to calling “The Location With The Urination Challenge.” My company, big on positive mindsets, has instructed employees not to use words like “problem” and “piss” and “OSHA violation.”

My boss, as it turns out, does not want to speak to me about the piss.

“I wish you would stop talking like that,” he sighs. “I sent a memo and everything.” He looks so sad, with his beautiful brown eyes. I immediately feel bad for him. I wonder which memo addressed it, and what language he used to make it sound fun and appealing. I confess I do not enjoy reading memos and, as such, I rarely read them at all.

“I’m sorry for talking about the piss wall,” I say, head hanging, a feigned show of visible shame.

My boss tells me he has to fire me because I keep talking about the piss and don’t read the memos and cry behind the register in a little ball. I tell him that I read the memos. He tells me to name one thing from the last memo. I think for a while. “Piss?” I guess. He is upset that I mentioned piss again. He starts to cry, so I cry too because it feels polite. I offer him the decorative pillow I shoplifted last shift. He does not want it. I pat his back once, gently. He tells me I’m lucky he does not report me for breaching the company’s physical contact policy. He asks me to do it again.

My boss has a task for me. He wants to find a solution that benefits us both. He is smiling, and I want him to keep smiling. I need this job. My roommate broke both ankles and also her jaw tripping over a pillow that said “Choose Joy,” so we’re behind on rent.

My boss wants me to find a bucket to place over the foot-sized hole, the one from the main floor to somewhere in the basement.  I like to throw office supplies into it during my breaks. Paper clips, coins, really anything that’s not nailed down. When I drop them, they fall for so long and make fun splashes.

“Jennifer’s chihuahua fell through the hole,” he tells me. “We do not want to distress our customers.”

I look for a bucket. When I cannot find one, I eat all the expired candy in the store. Customers come in, so I hide. I watch from the closet as a woman steals seven candles. 

I shove every candy wrapper under the register one by one. When I finish, I feel sick. I bend over, vomiting expired candy into the hole in the floor. I hear it splosh wetly in the basement.

As I raise my head, I make eye contact with a large rat.

“Stop looking at me like that,” I say, but it ignores my request, instead running into the backstock room. I follow, just to be courteous. It leads me to a bucket. I thank it, but it scampers up my leg and bites me right on the left kneecap.

When I pick up the bucket, there are several cockroaches underneath. Squishing cockroaches spreads disease, so I wish them well, thank them for shopping with us today, and leave them be. I place the bucket over the hole in the floor, but it simply opens wider and swallows the bucket into its gaping mouth.

My boss calls me into his office. Not every candy I ate was expired. He has to fire me.

“Even after everything we’ve been through?” I ask.

He does not care about what we’ve been through. I tell him I love him. He kisses my forehead softly before I leave. He wears chapstick that smells like Holiday Bliss. It leaves a mark like a sticky brand. When I try to wipe it off, it doesn’t budge, so he definitely loves me back. On the bus home, it mixes with my sweat and the smoke from the driver’s cigarette. The next morning, I have a lip-shaped acne patch to remember him by. I also have a swollen left kneecap. When I flick my leg, synovial fluid jiggles like a Jello mold.

I do not receive my final paycheck.