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MONDAY MORNING I HAD to stop by the tag agency to update my license plate, which was half an hour in a sweaty line, wearing a facemask the whole time. When I got to the counter, I couldn’t understand anything the lady grumbled at me through her own mask and an already-scuffed plexiglass barrier.
We both spent a while yelling back and forth to no avail. In the end, I slid her the reminder notice I’d gotten in the mail, and she rolled her eyes at me. Then she set to work processing it. She eventually turned back to me with a muffled request that I’d been anticipating. I slid my check card over, and tried to shout distinctly, “I know there’s an extra fee! I’ll pay it.”
She frowned at my card and then at me. “Mff nf ath th snsns!”
I took a breath and tried to shout louder. “I know there’s a credit card fee! I’ll pay it.”
She growled at me and tried again. “Mff nf. Snsns!”
I stared back, confused, and just as I was about to try screaming, she rolled her eyes again and pulled down her mask. “Insurance!”
Insurance! Of course. I’d even remembered that before, but it slipped my mind during the half-hour wait. I dug in my back pocket and produced the crumpled-up print-out that proved I carried the legal bare minimum insurance to drive on public roads.
She rolled her eyes once more as she turned away.
This was the kind of work I’d have to do. Minimum wage, demeaning, yelling through plexiglass at angry people all day, just to barely cover rent on my awful apartment. I understood why she was so grumpy. I felt a pit in my stomach, thinking, “In a month or two, that’ll be me.”
When she came back, she pulled down her mask and said, “That’ll be thirty-seven fifty.”
I pulled down mine and said, “I know there’s a fee. Just put it on the card.”
She gave me my receipt with a tiny sticker for my license plate, and I left the place forty dollars poorer.
I passed my favorite steakhouse on my way back home. My stomach was grumbling for food, but I didn’t consider stopping. I passed a dozen fast food places, too, but they felt like a waste of money.
I could get a job delivering food. Demand was sky-high right now. Register with UberEats or Postmates and make some money driving around. But everything I’d read online made gig work sound like legal slavery. California and Europe were doing everything they could to clamp down on companies like Uber and put them out of business.
Better than working the counter at a tag agency? Maybe. Probably less than minimum wage after gas and maintenance, though. My stomach kept grumbling, but I was no longer hungry.
I stopped at the discount grocery store near my apartment. It belonged in a real ghetto. There were bars over all the doors and windows, and skeezy-looking dudes always hanging around outside. It smelled weird, too. And everything on the shelves was cheap and generic. Industrial fluorescent lights buzzed and flickered overhead in exposed metal rafters that would’ve looked dated in an ‘80s movie. “Modern Cute” it wasn’t.
It did remind me of my game, though. I stopped a few steps through the door and looked around—really looked. It wasn’t a big empty rectangle. There was a boxed-in customer service area off to the left where I could buy cigarettes or lottery tickets or ask to speak to a manager. Under every cashier window hung a big banner with faded red lettering, “HELP WANTED!”
I turned away, taking in everything I could, memorizing details I could add to my game. The restrooms. The seafood tank. I thought about the thugs lounging outside and the dude with a hot dog cart who showed up Saturdays.
A buzz on my phone interrupted me, but it was an unknown number. Spam calls were getting worse and worse these days. I let it go to voicemail.
The spell was broken, though. I grabbed some sandwich meat and a loaf of generic sliced white bread and a couple 2-liters of Pepsi, and that was my grocery shopping checked off, too. It had been a productive morning. When I got back to my place, I made a sandwich and dropped on the couch and turned on some YouTube.
That could’ve been my whole day. Most days in the Great Pandemic, it would’ve been. But before I’d even finished my sandwich, I was feeling bored. I closed YouTube and opened Exelichai and got back to work on my grocery store.
Next thing I knew, it was midnight. And even though I’d done nothing but decorate a digital dollhouse, really, it felt like a good hard day’s work. I went to bed with my mind buzzing, feeling better than I had in a long time.