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Description
            I was like one of those music box ballerinas. I moved my limbs stiffly in practiced, predictable gestures along an imaginary track as I walked from the end of my register, behind the conveyer belt, and into my little cashier box walls made of grocery bags to the left, register keyboard in front, and computer screen and register drawer to the right. In the background, tired old nineties and eighties pop songs echoed over and over through the grocery store aisles.

            My painted, plastic smile greeted a customer. I scanned his canned corn and gave him a pre-packaged "Hi, how are you today?"

            He was an old man, probably eighty or so, and I don't think he heard me. He focused all of his attention on opening his wallet with trembling fingers. His tilted eyebrows, open mouth, and hunched posture suggested a general air of bewilderment, like he wasn't quite sure how he'd ended up here.

            I ignored his silence and decided not to reiterate myself. To do so would have interrupted the flow of my movements, my cashier routine. Customer responses didn't really affect what I said back, anyway; most of our conversations were pre-determined from the moment either of us stepped out of our cars and into the parking lot.

            "Beautiful day, isn't it?" I said without any real sentiment behind it. I scanned the rest of his groceries-bread and a half-gallon of milk-and bagged them.

            Two baggers had called in sick today, so I had to bag my own orders. It wasn't really a burden; it was mostly muscle memory, anyway. I just dropped in the items, ripped the bag from the holder, opened the new one, and repeated.
            My fingers tapped TOTAL on the keyboard.

            "Your total's three ninety-two," I said loudly.

            The old man nodded and, after a few moments of searching, put exact change in my hand.

            I typed 390 CASH, and the drawer popped open; I put change in its proper place, closed the drawer, tapped CLEAR, and waited for the receipt. I handed his groceries to him, reached over, grabbed his receipt, and handed that to him, too.

            "Have a nice day!"

            He nodded his head as if in habit rather than acknowledgment and walked away. Behind me, the sliding doors parted with a mechanical wheeze as he exited the store.

            I stood and waited for my next customer. I was thinking about tomorrow and how I needed to wash my uniform tonight when The Proclaimers' "500 Miles" gave way to Andy Williams' "Born Free" on the speakers overhead. I looked upward, but the ceiling seemed impossibly far away and uncomfortably close at the same time. I felt small.

            Maybe that's just because it was almost five o' clock.

            I'd read once that people are taller in the morning because walking and standing wears down the level of cartilage between leg joints. The rubber pad under my feet served as a buffer between my heels and harsh, hard tile, but my joints still ached as if I was rusting and corroding from the knees down.

            I snapped my attention back to my register when I heard a shopping cart rattle its way toward me. This middle-aged woman walked through my line, and the first thing I noticed about her was her eyebrows.

            Many women her age had penciled-in eyebrows born from a need for too much control; their eyebrows stopped growing back since they had plucked them razor-thin too many times during their youth. Those were the type of women who usually applied far too much makeup, too, the kind who caked it on like their skin could absorb forgotten youth through adolescent shades of bubble-gum pink eye-shadow. Eyes were the window to the soul, so they guarded themselves with thick black bars of mascara to keep trespassers out. If they didn't reveal anything, if they didn't make themselves vulnerable, nothing could be taken from them.

            Their eyebrows were just flat, smudged lines above flat, smudged eyes.

            But this woman's eyebrows were naturally thick, and they rose away from her skin like dandelion seeds. They had flight in them; they were arched and feathered at the ends like she'd shed part of herself in the wind.

            "Hi, how are you today?" clicked out of my mouth, and my hands reached for her groceries. I'd been programmed like the register under my fingers and the computer on my right.

            "Could be better, but could be much worse. Quite simply, I'm happy to be alive," she said with naked eyes; no makeup, no guarded, automatic I'm-doing-well-thanks-how-are-you.

            This response threw me a little, so I focused more attention on scanning her groceries. I scanned store-brand tomatoes, bread, milk, lettuce, accidentally scanned lettuce twice, tapped VOID on the extra one, scanned strawberries and lemonade.

            My normal route was thwarted. Normally, this was the part where I talked to strangers about the weather as if I hadn't heard about it a hundred times already today. This was the part where we talked only to fill in the gaps of the beeping scanner and no one really said anything.

            I didn't want to talk to this woman about the weather, but the sounds filed out between my teeth before I could stop them: "Beautiful day, isn't it?"

            She looked at me for a moment and then said, "Is it?" Would you know if it wasn't? she didn't say.

            I turned left to look at the large, floor-length windows at the front of the store. The shadows of parked cars had shifted and stretched a little since the last time I'd looked, but the scene was much the same: blue sky, tufts of cloud, slowly sinking sun.

            The woman continued, "Have you been outside today?"

            I'd walked across the lawn to my car this morning and had walked through the parking lot when I'd gotten here. "Yes."

            But then I looked at the smooth curve of the woman's eyelids and the way she caught the low five-o'-clock sunlight in her eyelashes. I traced the erratic, tanned laugh lines that spread from the edges of her naked eyes. I noticed the little brown sunspots that dotted her neck, like she'd tipped her head back in laughter and swallowed sunlight so much that it had leaked through her throat. And I knew she wasn't asking just if I'd been outside today, but whether I'd really, really been outside in awhile.

            Most customers came through and agreed it was a beautiful day, but I didn't even know for myself. I didn't know if it was humid out or if there was a slight breeze or if the heat was actually unbearable. "No. Not really."

            She didn't say anything else. Andy Williams' singing filled in the silence for us.

            I scanned her coupon, (item exceeded coupon value), typed OVERRIDE, manager code 2354, and ENTER; I scanned her coupon and tapped TOTAL. "Your total is thirty dollars, forty three cents."

            I began bagging the woman's groceries. We were supposed to try to fit at least five items per bag so we didn't waste them. I arranged a box of cereal, can of soup, jar of peanut butter, box of oatmeal, and set eggs and bread on top so they didn't get smashed.

            The woman handed me two twenties to pay, and I was a little disappointed. If she'd paid with credit, she'd have had to sign the credit receipt, and then I would have known her name.

            I didn't know how to ask people's names anymore. Everyone who worked here was already labeled, canned into shallow first-impressions: LYNN with the two-inch fake nails, RUTH with the bags under her eyes, TYLER with the military dog tags.

            I sometimes wondered what my label was, and I wish I knew how to ask people's names instead of this: tapped 4000 CASH, drawer popped open, put twenties with the others, made 957 CHANGE (five dollar bill four one dollar bills two quarters nickel two pennies) like the computer screen said.

            I closed the drawer, tapped CLEAR, and waited for the receipt to print. I handed the woman her change and groceries.

            She smiled. " Carpe diem . Take some time for yourself, okay?"

            I wanted to tell her she was missing half of the phrase. The full one was: Carpe diem quam minimum credula postero.

"Have a nice day!" spilled out of my mouth automatically with all the bland sincerity and character of the rattling receipt paper. I reached over, ripped it from the printer, and handed it to the woman-this and a routine smile was all I could offer her.

…

            After my shift, I exited through the sliding doors and started walking toward my car. I had my keys primed and ready in hand, but once I got to my car, I paused. I reached up and unclipped my nametag. With it, I removed whatever preconceived notions of me that customers had pinned on my name in the last eight hours. I reached down and pulled my gray polo uniform shirt from its neatly-tucked position; it wrinkled sloppily against my black uniform pants. I reached back and slid the tight hair band down and off my hair. Freed from its restrictive ponytail, my hair hesitated and then sighed down among my shoulders.

            I closed my eyes and gauged the beauty of the world with my skin and the way a humid breeze trickled through my hair. I saw the sun as a red, warm glow on the inside of my eyelids, and the traffic that crashed against Grand Avenue sounded almost like waves.

            I opened my eyes and decided it was a disgusting day, after all. Remnants of a rainfall had painted everything a darker, muskier shade, and filth from the roads had piled against the gutters. The air was thick and pressed uncomfortably against my skin. My muscle memory tapped on the inside of my skin: ENTER car, DRIVE home as the air conditioning blasts, ENTER house, flip on television, WASH uniform, SLEEP nine hours.

            But instead I hummed a song to myself, and I made it up as I went. I abandoned any sense of musical harmony, really, but the way my vocal cords moved then was not a regurgitation of any of the songs that had cycled through the store, and that's what was important.

            I leaned against the hood of my car and sweated through my gray polo as I soaked up orange-violet sunset like the clouds. I wasn't worried anymore about washing my uniform tonight.

            I hated the sticky feel of my skin, and this was somehow beautiful.

Description
            I was like one of those music box ballerinas. I moved my limbs stiffly in practiced, predictable gestures along an imaginary track as I walked from the end of my register, behind the conveyer belt, and into my little cashier box walls made of grocery bags to the left, register keyboard in front, and computer screen and register drawer to the right. In the background, tired old nineties and eighties pop songs echoed over and over through the grocery store aisles.

            My painted, plastic smile greeted a customer. I scanned his canned corn and gave him a pre-packaged "Hi, how are you today?"

            He was an old man, probably eighty or so, and I don't think he heard me. He focused all of his attention on opening his wallet with trembling fingers. His tilted eyebrows, open mouth, and hunched posture suggested a general air of bewilderment, like he wasn't quite sure how he'd ended up here.

            I ignored his silence and decided not to reiterate myself. To do so would have interrupted the flow of my movements, my cashier routine. Customer responses didn't really affect what I said back, anyway; most of our conversations were pre-determined from the moment either of us stepped out of our cars and into the parking lot.

            "Beautiful day, isn't it?" I said without any real sentiment behind it. I scanned the rest of his groceries-bread and a half-gallon of milk-and bagged them.

            Two baggers had called in sick today, so I had to bag my own orders. It wasn't really a burden; it was mostly muscle memory, anyway. I just dropped in the items, ripped the bag from the holder, opened the new one, and repeated.
            My fingers tapped TOTAL on the keyboard.

            "Your total's three ninety-two," I said loudly.

            The old man nodded and, after a few moments of searching, put exact change in my hand.

            I typed 390 CASH, and the drawer popped open; I put change in its proper place, closed the drawer, tapped CLEAR, and waited for the receipt. I handed his groceries to him, reached over, grabbed his receipt, and handed that to him, too.

            "Have a nice day!"

            He nodded his head as if in habit rather than acknowledgment and walked away. Behind me, the sliding doors parted with a mechanical wheeze as he exited the store.

            I stood and waited for my next customer. I was thinking about tomorrow and how I needed to wash my uniform tonight when The Proclaimers' "500 Miles" gave way to Andy Williams' "Born Free" on the speakers overhead. I looked upward, but the ceiling seemed impossibly far away and uncomfortably close at the same time. I felt small.

            Maybe that's just because it was almost five o' clock.

            I'd read once that people are taller in the morning because walking and standing wears down the level of cartilage between leg joints. The rubber pad under my feet served as a buffer between my heels and harsh, hard tile, but my joints still ached as if I was rusting and corroding from the knees down.

            I snapped my attention back to my register when I heard a shopping cart rattle its way toward me. This middle-aged woman walked through my line, and the first thing I noticed about her was her eyebrows.

            Many women her age had penciled-in eyebrows born from a need for too much control; their eyebrows stopped growing back since they had plucked them razor-thin too many times during their youth. Those were the type of women who usually applied far too much makeup, too, the kind who caked it on like their skin could absorb forgotten youth through adolescent shades of bubble-gum pink eye-shadow. Eyes were the window to the soul, so they guarded themselves with thick black bars of mascara to keep trespassers out. If they didn't reveal anything, if they didn't make themselves vulnerable, nothing could be taken from them.

            Their eyebrows were just flat, smudged lines above flat, smudged eyes.

            But this woman's eyebrows were naturally thick, and they rose away from her skin like dandelion seeds. They had flight in them; they were arched and feathered at the ends like she'd shed part of herself in the wind.

            "Hi, how are you today?" clicked out of my mouth, and my hands reached for her groceries. I'd been programmed like the register under my fingers and the computer on my right.

            "Could be better, but could be much worse. Quite simply, I'm happy to be alive," she said with naked eyes; no makeup, no guarded, automatic I'm-doing-well-thanks-how-are-you.

            This response threw me a little, so I focused more attention on scanning her groceries. I scanned store-brand tomatoes, bread, milk, lettuce, accidentally scanned lettuce twice, tapped VOID on the extra one, scanned strawberries and lemonade.

            My normal route was thwarted. Normally, this was the part where I talked to strangers about the weather as if I hadn't heard about it a hundred times already today. This was the part where we talked only to fill in the gaps of the beeping scanner and no one really said anything.

            I didn't want to talk to this woman about the weather, but the sounds filed out between my teeth before I could stop them: "Beautiful day, isn't it?"

            She looked at me for a moment and then said, "Is it?" Would you know if it wasn't? she didn't say.

            I turned left to look at the large, floor-length windows at the front of the store. The shadows of parked cars had shifted and stretched a little since the last time I'd looked, but the scene was much the same: blue sky, tufts of cloud, slowly sinking sun.

            The woman continued, "Have you been outside today?"

            I'd walked across the lawn to my car this morning and had walked through the parking lot when I'd gotten here. "Yes."

            But then I looked at the smooth curve of the woman's eyelids and the way she caught the low five-o'-clock sunlight in her eyelashes. I traced the erratic, tanned laugh lines that spread from the edges of her naked eyes. I noticed the little brown sunspots that dotted her neck, like she'd tipped her head back in laughter and swallowed sunlight so much that it had leaked through her throat. And I knew she wasn't asking just if I'd been outside today, but whether I'd really, really been outside in awhile.

            Most customers came through and agreed it was a beautiful day, but I didn't even know for myself. I didn't know if it was humid out or if there was a slight breeze or if the heat was actually unbearable. "No. Not really."

            She didn't say anything else. Andy Williams' singing filled in the silence for us.

            I scanned her coupon, (item exceeded coupon value), typed OVERRIDE, manager code 2354, and ENTER; I scanned her coupon and tapped TOTAL. "Your total is thirty dollars, forty three cents."

            I began bagging the woman's groceries. We were supposed to try to fit at least five items per bag so we didn't waste them. I arranged a box of cereal, can of soup, jar of peanut butter, box of oatmeal, and set eggs and bread on top so they didn't get smashed.

            The woman handed me two twenties to pay, and I was a little disappointed. If she'd paid with credit, she'd have had to sign the credit receipt, and then I would have known her name.

            I didn't know how to ask people's names anymore. Everyone who worked here was already labeled, canned into shallow first-impressions: LYNN with the two-inch fake nails, RUTH with the bags under her eyes, TYLER with the military dog tags.

            I sometimes wondered what my label was, and I wish I knew how to ask people's names instead of this: tapped 4000 CASH, drawer popped open, put twenties with the others, made 957 CHANGE (five dollar bill four one dollar bills two quarters nickel two pennies) like the computer screen said.

            I closed the drawer, tapped CLEAR, and waited for the receipt to print. I handed the woman her change and groceries.

            She smiled. " Carpe diem . Take some time for yourself, okay?"

            I wanted to tell her she was missing half of the phrase. The full one was: Carpe diem quam minimum credula postero.

"Have a nice day!" spilled out of my mouth automatically with all the bland sincerity and character of the rattling receipt paper. I reached over, ripped it from the printer, and handed it to the woman-this and a routine smile was all I could offer her.

…

            After my shift, I exited through the sliding doors and started walking toward my car. I had my keys primed and ready in hand, but once I got to my car, I paused. I reached up and unclipped my nametag. With it, I removed whatever preconceived notions of me that customers had pinned on my name in the last eight hours. I reached down and pulled my gray polo uniform shirt from its neatly-tucked position; it wrinkled sloppily against my black uniform pants. I reached back and slid the tight hair band down and off my hair. Freed from its restrictive ponytail, my hair hesitated and then sighed down among my shoulders.

            I closed my eyes and gauged the beauty of the world with my skin and the way a humid breeze trickled through my hair. I saw the sun as a red, warm glow on the inside of my eyelids, and the traffic that crashed against Grand Avenue sounded almost like waves.

            I opened my eyes and decided it was a disgusting day, after all. Remnants of a rainfall had painted everything a darker, muskier shade, and filth from the roads had piled against the gutters. The air was thick and pressed uncomfortably against my skin. My muscle memory tapped on the inside of my skin: ENTER car, DRIVE home as the air conditioning blasts, ENTER house, flip on television, WASH uniform, SLEEP nine hours.

            But instead I hummed a song to myself, and I made it up as I went. I abandoned any sense of musical harmony, really, but the way my vocal cords moved then was not a regurgitation of any of the songs that had cycled through the store, and that's what was important.

            I leaned against the hood of my car and sweated through my gray polo as I soaked up orange-violet sunset like the clouds. I wasn't worried anymore about washing my uniform tonight.

            I hated the sticky feel of my skin, and this was somehow beautiful.