Let’s Just Say
by Jennifer—Age 32—Columbia, MO
You worked first at Wal-Mart, where you took the money of the President you watched from your little bed by the TV when you still lived in the trailer. You wanted him to win again; he didn’t. Now you made him change. They were paying you a quarter over minimum wage, and this seemed to you fabulous. You were on your way out, via scholarship to a university in a big city by the sea. After, you came back and worked at a different one. You cried in the shower. When you were still crying blow drying your hair, you quit. You worked for a while in days, three for a man who shut you into his office to cry on the job. You sold books as a bookseller. This entailed a lot of vacuuming. Sometimes you were instructed to dust the books with Pledge. You moved back west while you could still be considered young, typed letters for a woman younger then than you are now who didn’t wear straps all summer, not even the spaghetti kind. It was a long summer in Santa Monica. She pulled her tops up over her breasts as she told you what to do. You flew South and attempted to teach writing as you studied it yourself. Let’s just say you didn’t win any awards. You taught some more after, typed some more. You hung clothes piled in dressing rooms back on the racks after hours. For a while, you worked only online and never left the house. Looking for work became your work. You kept at it no matter how many jobs you had. You struggled to make the money you’d made years ago in Santa Monica in far less sunny places. You almost vomited when offered a real job. You kept working the others, sending in applications for jobs while at the others. You ate to keep from falling asleep at the table. When you lay in bed next to your lover at night, cataloging all you’d lose by working the next day, let’s just say you were happy.
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