Description: This was an interesting find. I wrote this for a two-hour writing contest back in 2003. I’ve never edited it. This is the first time I’ve read it since I wrote it. Honestly? I’m not completely sure I like it. I know what I think I was going for…I think. It might have come across too preachy. Perhaps I’ll just shut up now and let you be the judge.

Rating: PG (mild language)

***

“You forgot my coupon, lady.”

Brenda stood behind the register wearing a bright blue smock with the words “Sav-Mart” embroidered over her left breast. She gave him a questioning look.

“On the dog food. It was right next to the frigging UPC code.” He was growing agitated, a redness forming high on his cheeks. “C’mon. Don’t you do this for a living?”

Brenda was taken aback, but glanced down at the bag of Beef ‘N More. Sure enough, it was right where he said it was. “I’m sorry,” she replied as she reached over and peeled it off.

She pressed a few buttons on the modified point of sale keyboard in front of her, then began to enter the numbers. Her register beeped.

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” the man began, “but is it not double-coupon day?” He was watching the numbers in the display roll by as she typed.

“Oh, you’re right,” Brenda apologized. “I’m sorry about that.” Her fingers flew again, correcting her mistake. The man shook his head and looked at his watch.

“All right, your total is thirty-two ninety-nine,” Brenda announced.

The man handed her thirty-three dollars. “Keep the penny,” he said as he gathered his groceries and walked quickly away.

“Do you need your recie-” Brenda began, but the man was already halfway to the exit. Brenda sighed, waited for the paper to finish printing, then tossed it in a cardboard trash box beside her. She pressed a button by her hip and the conveyor belt rolled and deposited more goods in front of her to scan.

“Would you like paper or plastic?” she asked and glanced upward.

The man in front of her lifted his head to meet her apathetic gaze. An infectious smile crept across his cracked lips and spread like oil across his face, wrinkled with years of hard work and hearty laughter. “I guess it’s six ‘o one, half-dozen of the other, really,” he chimed. His smile hadn’t faded. “How ‘bout paper. I’ve got some clothes to pack up, and they just don’t set right in those plastic jobs.”

Brenda returned his smile, but it was more of a plastic reproduction of a smile, tempered by thousands of hours of “customer service” to assholes like the last guy. “Paper it is, then,” she said.

Brenda began to grab at the products in front of her and wipe them in front of the scattered red lasers that occasionally blinked onto her smock. A box of tissue, a package of cough drops, a small bag of apples…the same items she had seen and touched a thousand or more times before. All the same. Nothing new under the sun, and certainly not under the warbling fluorescent lights of the Sav-Mart.

“I guess that guy was in a hurry,” the old man said.

Brenda rolled her eyes slightly. She glanced out the window at the front of the store in time to see the man speeding off in a BMW. “I guess,” she said. “I’m sure his time is vastly more important than mine.” Her words dripped with sarcasm.

The old man laughed, and Brenda noticed something almost immediately: He wasn’t faking. His smile had grown even bigger than before, if that were possible, and his laughter came from somewhere deep inside. It fit him like the worn coveralls he was wearing, like a tailor made laugh that was well rehearsed and often used.

“As long as he thinks so, I guess,” the man continued to chuckle. “I’m sure he’ll put that extra two bucks to good use, too.”

Brenda laughed. It was a tiny laugh, originating from somewhere in her chest. It almost took her by surprise.

“How are you today,” a slight pause as he looked at her name tag, “Brenda?”

“I’m alive and I punched the clock, so I suppose I’m ok,” she said with a half-smile.

“I think I’ve seen you in here before,” he continued, “Have you worked here long?”

“Too long,” she answered as she swiped a half-gallon of orange juice. “About five and a half years.”

“Ah,” he chuckled, “working your way toward retirement then.”

“Oh god, I hope not,” she said and glanced at him again. That smile, warm, was still there. For a moment it was like she was standing in front of a space heater. This guy was radiating.

“You’re not happy, then?” he asked. Brenda noticed a sincerity in his question.

“Well, c’mon, sir. I mean, it’s the Sav-Mart. I’m just a cashier. You don’t see me walking around in the pinstriped shirts reserved for management. It’s…”, her thoughts trailed for a moment, “…well, it’s just not the goldmine I might have expected to be in at this point in my life.”

“Oh,” the man said. “I see.”

“It’s just that, I never expected that this was it,” she said. “I mean, I did what I was told, did decent in school, went to college…I don’t know where it went sour.”

“Maybe you’re expecting too much,” he said. “You know, the more you expect, the higher your chances are of being disappointed. It’s not your circumstances that are causing you anxiety, it’s the ones that are missing that you think you’re supposed to have. If that’s the only thing that is causing you misery, what if you just decided that you didn’t want them in the first place? What does that leave you with?”

Brenda wanted to nod in agreement, but her mind was fixated on the possibility of what he had just said. More than anything she had ever heard before, more than any “get rich quick” scheme or golden highway to happiness, this is the only one that actually made sense.

Another cart appeared in the line behind the man, a sour-faced woman behind it. She began to unload it hurriedly.

“I’m sorry, this lane is closed.” Brenda flicked a switch to turn out the light behind the number seven that flickered dully over her register. The lady scowled as she scooped up her purchases and wandered to another register.

“Look at all this stuff,” the man continued. He gestured to the vast warehouse of things behind him in the store. “I mean, really. Aside from the food, the medicine and some of the other basic necessities,” he tapped the box of tissue, then his reddened nose and smiled, “how much of this stuff could anybody live without?” He paused for a moment. “I’d venture to say most of it.”

This time Brenda did nod.

“Yet can you imagine how many hundreds of people walk in here and either buy things that catch their eye, or walk past something interesting and get all upset because they can’t buy it? I bet you a hundred people or more came into this place today needing milk and left depressed because they couldn’t afford something they hadn’t even thought about having. I saw a kid screaming, had real tears on his face, because he wanted that damned X-Box. The kids shoes looked like they might have been too tight on his feet, and his shirt was faded from repeated washings. His mom looked like she might have been sick. You see what I’m getting at?”

Brenda did. She saw it as plain as the numbers on the screen in front of her. It made her chest swell with a kind of shame, a pain that made most of her problems seem petty. How many times had she done the same thing? Felt the same way? How much of her disappointment was a direct result of wanting things she never needed in the first place? Her mind reeled.

“Some people measure success by the pile of crap they have amassed over the years,” he said. “I decided long ago that I’d never measure up by that standard. Then I realized I didn’t need to. Like your friend.” He gestured toward the window where they had watched the BMW speed away. “Coupon guy. You think he was happy?”

“He didn’t seem to be,” she answered.

“I agree. Didn’t see him smile once, did you?”

“Nope.”

“Treated you like something he might have stepped in on a nature hike. That’s not the sign of a happy person. Maybe he outta sell that Beamer and spend more time in the park, or with his kids if he’s got ‘em, or reading a good book.”

“You’re not happy, either, are you?” he asked.

Brenda shook her head. “Not really.”

“But I think you could be, don’t you?”

A tear formed in Brenda’s eye then quickly rolled down one cheek. She wiped it away with her hand. She nodded.

“You have any kiddos?” he asked.

“Three. All girls.”

“Hoo!” he bellowed. “You’ve got yourself a handful! I bet they love their mom.”

Brenda shrugged. “Yeah, I think so.”

“Oh, they do. They’d have to.”

They paused for a moment. Brenda felt moved in several directions. She was sad at what she had begun to discover were flaws in her way of thinking. She was flattered by this kind old man who had swept into her evening shift and challenged her. She was elated at the possibilities of what he had said. When she thought about it, she felt something else too…happiness. Not full-blown, obvious, shout-from-the-rooftop happiness. More like turning the corner of your grandmother’s street after a long walk and smelling the faint aroma of a baked pie. Happiness was ready and waiting for her, and it was just around the corner.

She could smell it.

“Well, what’s the damage?” he asked.

“Oh!” Brenda smiled and pressed one last button. “Nineteen twenty-six.”

He handed her nineteen dollars and a quarter. “I’ll use that guy’s penny, if you don’t mind.” He smiled again, and they both laughed.

He took his receipt from her and gathered his bags. He took one last look at her and smiled. “You have a good evening, sweetheart.”

She returned his smile. It was genuine, and it felt good. “I will,” she said, and watched him walk away.