Estimated Salesperson

Once upon a shopping mall, somewhere between superstore & broken-down pool hall, the estimated salesperson tallies what you have in your basket to make sure commerce takes place. The classic rock plays not quietly enough until cliched guitar riffs poke your unfeeling brain like acupuncture needles. What would the estimated salesperson do if your eyes started bleeding? Would she then accept your expired coupons?

You were daydreaming in the cereal aisle about bands that you liked getting back together to re-record their best records. It made you think of a date with an ex who had quit drinking in the seven years since you'd last dated. Or maybe the ex had started drinking. In any event, it wasn't the same. You wonder if the estimated salesperson has someone to love. Or if she's as empty as this supermarket is, in an evacuated shopping mall, at three o'clock in the afternoon.

The estimated salesperson is unimpressed that you brought your own bags, & seems to believe that means you have to fill them yourself. At higher-end stores they give your discounts, or donate something to charity. All for the possible petroleum you have saved. You think of a small patch of sky, somewhere over one of the great polluted oceans, air no human being will ever breathe, to which you gave a small reprieve today. You feel a little like the last bright cloud in the sky before sundown. Until the estimated salesperson wants you to pay.

The estimated salesperson looks unfriendly even when she's trying to look friendly. This, you understand, is a definition of unhappiness.