I found out the hard way that nothing is truly ever free.
My life story is a pretty standard one. I work a dead end retail job and have a crappy apartment downtown. The gig was supposed to be a short-lived excursion and the pig sty was planned as a quick stay but years after college, I still found myself bound to both albatrosses.
I work at an upscale outdoors emporium. There’s nothing rustic about our clientele. We sell glamping equipment to people who will never touch a tree in their lives and hiking gear to trust fund hipsters. Our centerpiece, in my opinion, is our outdoor furniture section.
I was made head of this department simply for the fact I’ve been here the longest. I wield no actual power and am constantly being reprimanded by my boss for lounging on the sofas, even when I’m showcasing the quality to potential customers. It’s like a buzzer goes off the second I splay myself across the smooth texture.
Although Tony is a complete asshole, he’s nothing compared to the guy before him. Big T is passive-aggressive and guilts you behind the scenes. Jerry would belittle you in front of God and everybody, often for no real reason at all. I once had an entire Christmas break ruined due to being on the receiving end of a particularly nasty rant over my decision to clock out before my shift ended. Had to hear about “LOP”: Loss of Production. Woulda done a whole lot with those 25 whole seconds.
All those blowups eventually caught up to ol’ Jer. Bastard’s heart exploded about four months ago. There was momentary store-wide celebration before we realized corporate would just send another bozo to kick us around. And they did.
The shoppers are no better. The catalyst for my terrifying tale was envy. Guy came in, looking to buy a gazebo. I had already sold him one before but this was for another yard and by the looks of it, for another woman. I put on the deceitful smile I’d mastered after a lifetime in customer service and catered to his every whim yet was still blasted by name on Yelp. I was so enraged, I don’t even remember what was said to me while I was being chewed out.
This incident got me to thinking: “why must I starve while these terrible people feast?” I could never afford the very wares I hawked. Even the cheaper substitutes at other stores were out of my price range. The brand names we sold quadrupled the cost of your average patio sectional. It was common fabric but it was deemed part of the high life and I wanted a taste. What they took for granted, I would savor. I made my plan.
I decided I was going to stay after closing and live like a king, at least for a night. My employer closes relatively early at 9 o’clock and doesn’t reopen until 8 so I had plenty of time to loiter. Got this idea from Bear, a large and lovable coworker who claimed this lifestyle was a dirty little secret he indulged in frequently. Miss that guy. Just up and disappeared one day.
Sneaking in was cake. I already worked the last shift and everyone was too beaten down by the soul-sucking this place did to care about what anyone else was doing. I excused myself to the bathroom 10 minutes before lockup. Luckily, the stalls extend all the way from the floor to the ceiling so all I had to do was stiffen myself like a gargoyle and I was out of sight. Nobody came in looking for me anyway. The beauty of faceless anonymity. The lights dimmed. I was home away from home free.
The blackout was more cozy than frightening, like a cool summer night. There was still enough illumination to see where I was going. I headed straight for Outdoor Furniture and plopped down on a canopyed hammock. This was the life. I almost fell asleep right there and then before a bang erupted.
Being a lifelong goody two shoes, I briefly panicked as one who was committing a flagrant crime against their employer would reasonably do but it became apparent it was merely structural shifting or something. Maybe my meek demeanor made it up as a guilty conscience thing. I had done everything the way I was told to do it. I got good grades in school and had never been to jail and still had nothing to show for it. I earned this. I deserved this.
You’d be surprised how much time you can eat up simply by relaxing. I must have spent two or three hours just reflecting on the beauty of this scam. I didn’t know if I was resting on wool or cotton but damn it felt good. Talk about giving a mouse a cookie. I never wanted this to end.
Suddenly, I heard the wind blow, Funny, that wasn’t in the forecast. I didn’t mind it at the time. In fact, I thought it added to the ambiance. I paired the breeze with one of those YouTube compilations of woodsy sounds. Crickets and shit. Did that until the screen froze.
“Wind must be messing with the service,” I thought. What a shame.
I got up to explore the other areas of the store. We have a huge sporting goods section. Even in the midnight hour, I still managed to swish some buckets. I also climbed the first couple platforms of the rock climbing station and immediately jumped off, just to say I tried it. I wouldn’t dare attempt the full course even in bright daylight.
Usually by this time of night, I was long asleep but I found myself to be very thirsty and kinda hungry. I managed to find an expensive imported lager and a pack of exotic game meat. The drink tasted like pure piss and the ostrich(?) was so tough, I had to spit it out but again, I loved the idea of parading around like a big shot.
Stealing groceries was also very therapeutic. In addition to the countless hours this place had ripped away from my finite time on Earth, I had also had a run-in with Jerry decades before we officially met. I had swiped a bottle of pop. It was the cheapest thing in the whole store—I doubt it even cost a dollar back then—but he screamed as if I had just boosted the Mona Lisa; not at my inattentive mother but at the toddler who had yet to form a code of ethics.
Mom always told this tale as a funny story at gatherings. I don’t even remember it happening. I think Jerry did though. Always seemed to go after me more than anyone else.
Finishing the shitty beer, I crushed the can and flung it to the floor. Usually I have more respect for the environment and my fellow wage slaves but boss man would be the first one in to open and it wouldn’t have killed him to do the first productive thing he’d done in his tenure. I couldn’t even hear the rattle over the increasing gusts.
Before I knew it, the wind was howling to the point I was concerned about my drive back. I elected to call it a night right there. I had had my fun. Besides, I was due back in a few hours anyway. No way I wasn’t going to get sick of this place eventually. I began my walk to the automatic doors.
The power cut off right before I triggered the exit.
All of a sudden, it was pitch black and I had no escape. I wasn’t worried about being dragged off and devoured by some ravenous unseen threat as much as I was petrified of getting caught later that morning and fired. Sure, I probably could have punched my way through the glass but I was too much of a ‘fraidy cat about my work record and too scared of requiring a visit to the ER. That would have been fun to explain. I needed a flashlight. Aisle 7.
I knew this store like the back of my hand. Or at least I thought I did.
Raindrops started to patter the roof. Trying my best to guess my surroundings, I bumped into countless expensive items and sent them careening to the hard ground below. Every bang made me grimace. When I reached what I believed to be aisle 7—I know I did the math right—I reached for a flashlight but instead felt a hand full of slime. I was in the bait section. I dropped the nightcrawlers to the floor and wiped my tainted hand across my jeans.
It became clear to me that these infractions would not go unnoticed. There were clear signs of some kind of break-in all over the store and if I wasn’t getting the rod, somebody else was. Hell, I figured they would drop the hammer on everybody. That was the culture here. Nobody is rewarded but everyone is to blame when something goes wrong.
Rattled by the bugs I could still feel crawling all over my body, I lost my spatial awareness. When I thought I had finally recovered my wherewithal, I felt something big and furry. The power kicked on just long enough for me to get jumpscared by the bear we displayed, several hundreds of square feet from where he was supposed to be. I fell back and clutched my chest, certain I was about to have a cardiac episode.
Taking off in a dead sprint, I figured the best thing to try to do was sleep off the rest of this nightmare in the domain I knew best. Must have racked up 6000 steps’ worth of cardio before I felt that familiar sensation I had thrown away a perfectly normal night for the chance to waller on. I leaped onto the cushions and the legs gave out immediately, sending me down in a heap of wreckage. I gave up and just stared into the black void above as several more clangs rang out. Whatever was going to happen was going to happen.
I still work here but now I’m paying off all the damage I did that night. Tony never made it back to work. Accepted a transfer to another franchise on the other side of town. This new guy we got is making sure he milks me as much as humanly possible. I’ve worked 80 hours a week for a year straight and am not much closer to even reimbursing my department. No matter how hard I work or gray I turn, I can’t please this guy and his insatiable demand for productivity. I tell ya, the resemblance is uncanny.