These Boots Were Made For Working

“I know there’s a more simple way of defeating zombies in Minecraft” says the eight-year-old, despite my undying penchant for never ever asking anything about Minecraft. Simpler, I think. “But to me it’s more simple to go in creative mode and collect all the weapons I need before fighting anything.” Simpler, I think, but I don’t say it because that would be discourteous. “It would be more simple to just stay in creative mode the whole time” the simpleton continues, “but I like a challenge.”

For the past ten months I’ve been working, which explains my readiness to criticise my child’s application of language and grammar (being that it was not me who taught him things, at least not recently). I was told that I’d “get used to” the tiredness and the bleak monotony, and yet every Thursday I am suicidal, and every Friday I am cynically assured that the weekend is just a ploy to get us all to show up again on Monday without revolting.

In many ways, though, I am revolting. I get home at three (that’s nine and a half hours after I left for work) covered in sweat, dust, spillages, and occasionally the tears I’ve cried after a customer has reprimanded me for not knowing whether or not our multivitamins are vegan (I cry when people are mean to me). I am miserable and taciturn, but my son and boyfriend are kind enough to pretend not to notice (I assume they’re pretending; perhaps they are oblivious, or perhaps I was always like this).

So I go up for a nap, relieving myself of the synthetic materials that make up my work uniform, take of my bra and observe a most obvious scratch on my left breast. “I know you” I say to the little prick, not out loud because the two people I love most are roughly ten feet away from me and might worry (assuming they’re not pretending not to notice). “I know exactly where you came from; I can and I will deconstruct the events leading up to your arrival, because then — and only then — will I be able to reclaim some power over you, you parasitic mammary pervert!” I do need sleep, don’t forget.

The shopping precinct right by my work has these deckchairs for the summer which I like to recline in during my lunch break, so that I’m at an angle which facilitates every dribble and crumb to fall on or down my work top (adding to the aforementioned sweat, dust, spillages and tears on the pure white fabric). Recently I’ve favoured a salted popcorn, but as we all know popped corn is a slippery bastard, especially when shovelled into a large, hungry mouth a handful at a time. Some of it inevitably falls down my top and a few half-kernels end up in the open gaps of my bra (I probably need a fitting). I didn’t have popcorn today, though. I had popcorn yesterday, went to bed in my bra, went to work in that same bra, and at some point during those hours got scratched by a rogue kernel making retaliatory attacks against the confines of my Tesco F&F bra and the boob sweat it harbours.

I hope my boyfriend doesn’t ask how I got that scratch.

“I miss seeing you” says the eight-year-old. I miss seeing him, too. I miss a lot of things, writing being a close second. “I know, but it will all work out for the best in the long run” I say through gritted teeth. My teeth are so well gritted now that I grind them in my sleep and have to wear a dental guard at night to stop them disappearing altogether. It’s not a cure but rather a preventative… mostly it serves to prevent my boyfriend from desiring me, being that it makes me look like a rugby player in M&S pyjamas.

I sleep restlessly, as I do every week night, and then it’s back to work. A colleague approaches me, “Emma, could you help this customer please?”

“Why can’t you help them?” I think, but don’t say…

“Do you know if you sell safety pins?” asks impatient customer №4762.

“Not to my knowledge” I tell her, “I’ve never seen them on the shelves but I’m not one hundred per cent sure… perhaps if you ask my colleague at the front desk… she’ll know better than me.” I’m keen to fob her off because when one customer gets you in their clutches another six will seize the opportunity and queue up to ask you questions you very rarely have answers for. Also this one seems like a bitch.

Two minutes later and she’s sought me out, “you DO sell safety pins!” she delightfully informs me.

“Oh right, sorry… I wasn’t sure; that’s why I suggested you speak to my colleague.”

“That’s really bad, isn’t it?” she says, “I ask specifically if you sell safety pins and as far as you’re concerned you don’t… Then I ask someone else and it turns out you do… that’s really bad.”

“Well, it’s not really bad” I respond, “ISIS is really bad… compared to having your head slowly chopped off with a blunt and rusty pocket knife, I’d say my insufficient knowledge of the whereabouts of safety pins is relatively minor…” I think, but don’t say…

Partly because it would cost me my job, and partly because I only think of it two minutes after she’s left. Instead I remind her again that I did recommend asking my co-worker, who’s been at the job a full decade longer than me, and that she did indeed get her [fucking] safety pins no more than a minute after she’d asked for them. She leaves and then I cry a little bit while I put boxes of tampons on a shelf, which is what I do for a living.

Three minutes before I’m due to go home I hear the two most detestable words in the English language:

“Excuse me?”

“Fuck off”… I think, but don’t say.

“Are there any more Simple products upstairs?”

“Pardon?”

“Your Simple skincare… is there more upstairs?”

“No, sorry, this is the full range we offer.”

“So as far as you’re concerned there’s no more Simple anywhere in the store? There must be more simple!”

Simpler, I think, but don’t say.