All I can do now, as I stand in one place, looking up at the flourescent lights from where my supervisor keeps me rooted, is stare at the clock. It’s ticking intimidates me. It reminds me I’ve only been here twenty minutes, and eleven seconds.

Tick, tick, tick, tick…

What happened to my sense of time?

Randall, my supervisor, glares at me from behind his clipboard, pointing to his shirt pocket. I look down at my red apron and silently groan as I pull out a happy yellow name badge and pin it on, poking my skin underneath my shirt in the process.

The name badge happily reads: Hello! My name is Maggie!

I go back to staring at the clock.

An eldery woman comes through my line with a cart filled to the brim.

This is the express line, I tell her.

She ignores me. Quickly, a line of impatient people grows behind her. She asks for various price checks.

Rick, price check on aisle two please, I say in an annoyed tone into the intercom.

Apparently the box boy is sick today.