Relax. It's Not Vietnam.

Beep, beep, beep! Your total is $235.43.

Do you have a gold card?

Do you want that in a bag?

I used to be a cashier at a local grocery store. That's the script of my recurring nightmares. Let's call that place The Monkey Bin.

My boyfriend asks me all the time,  "Why do you freak out so much? It's not Vietnam."

It's because at the Monkey Bin, I had a manager who was a master of the "you twit!" look. This chick could have been a drill sergeant in Vietnam. Let's call her the Dragon Lady.

I landed a part in a local production of Rent, my favorite musical.  Rehearsal was at 7. So was quitting time. Fortunately, the director understood I'd be a little late. Then Dragon Lady asked me to stay till 7:30.

Seriously?

I contemplated staying just to kiss ass. But then I realized, "I am not obligated to stay, so I'm not."

Funny thing is, if she were nicer, I probably would have.

Kiss up or not, I was not going to give up what I loved for this crappy, minimum wage job.

I worked there for three more months. Each time I went to work, I liked it less and less. It was because every time I worked, I could not escape working with the Dragon Lady.

I racked my brain trying to figure out why she was so mean and impersonal, then I pondered an even bigger question--

"Why was she broken?,"meaning why did she behave this way?

She gave an eerie blank stare that mimicked her personality perfectly through her pale blue eyes--ice cold and vacant, like Antarctica.

 She was the reason I left work in tears for a month.

She was taking courses at my college this summer. I held a door open for her. Rudely enough, she just kept on walking. Even a stranger says thank you.

"Memories and possibilities are ever more hideous than realities"---H.P. Lovecraft. Usually, the thought of going to work is worse than actually being at work.When I worked at the Monkey Bin, the memories and possibilities were always less hideous than the realities.

I know a few people who quit because they didn't like working there, so I didn't feel so bad when I sabotaged myself into getting fired.

Can you believe I got fired for saying the word "virgin"?  I also refused to take a customer because my shift was technically over. Of course, that customer was the owner's mom, which apparently was a big no-no.

Oops.

Yes, I actually got fired because of this, not because money was missing, not because I cursed out a customer, because I said the word "virgin", and not taking a customer.

Once.

Being fired felt like this-- It felt like I was back in school and the teacher caught me putting my gum in another girl's beautiful blonde hair. I was a malicious little child. 

Driving home I cried with tears of regret, because I had just been fired, but also tears of relief knowing I never had to return to the Dragon's Den.

Eventually I got another job. The interviewer hired me right away. When I came in my first day, she lit up a cigarette, took a puff, and began telling me that being a student would be perfect because I could work on the weekends. 

Then she started giving me her whole life story. This was different. Someone was actually being personal with me, unlike anyone at my old job.

The Monkey Bin made us feel replaceable.

They wanted us to be robots with no personality.

I think I brought all the unwanted stresses of Dragon Lady's expectations to my new job and became stressed out about them. The last month of my employment at the Monkey Bin, I would obsess about not wanting to go back to work. Quitting time, was never quitting time for me. I would bring the negative energy home with me, and I all I could think about was not going back and that was when I fired myself.

Sometimes I freak out before going to work again, but I guess it's a head game I play with myself. 

My boyfriend Andy always says "Babe, it's the Unimart, not Vietnam."