PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

     My shift is about to begin so I open the door to my booth and a wall of smoke ominously comes out of it. Bill has been smoking in the booth again. I hate it when smokes in the booth we share; it leaves everything reeking of cigarette smoke, especially the walls. There really should be a rule against smoking in the booths, it is inconsiderate towards those who have shifts right after the smokers. I will have to put this into the suggestion box that Louis, our supervisor, has outside his office. I don’t think that any of the suggestions I’ve put in there have been even read by any one of our superiors. Louis just put the suggestion box there because he got tired of me showing up every other day demanding that something about this place be changed. I could see it in his eyes every time he asked, “What is wrong now?” as I walked in through his door. But I have to complain if things are to change in this male dominated field. Even if I know that my suggestions will just sit in the suggestion box for months, it brings me peace to push the little paper into the box’s opening; I know I’ve done my part.

     “Hello, Doreen. I was just cleaning up my mess, I know how you don’t like it when I leave it dirty in here,” Bill says as I shove my head into the booth, “I’ll be leaving in just a sec.”

     “Well, hurry up! You know the customers don’t like to be kept waiting.”

    “It is not like we get a lot of customers this late into the night. Anyways, see you tomorrow,” he says as he steps out of the both, “I hope you have a pleasant shift, Doreen.”

     I step into the booth as quickly as possible, closing the door behind me. I immediately reach up to the little vent in the top of my booth and open it up, to let the smoke out. I reach into my purse, which I have now set underneath my chair, and pull out my air freshener. I learned to bring it with me after a few nights after my shifts were put right after Bill’s.  I spray the entire booth with it. The label reads “Mediterranean Lavender.” I don’t know how differently Mediterranean Lavender smells from the kind of lavender that my neighbor, the housewife, grows in her garden. To me, they smell the same.

As I finish dousing the entire place with the smell of foreign lavender, I sit down in my chair and stare straight ahead of me, hoping for a customer to arrive. Some other employees bring things to entertain themselves with while they wait, Gameboys, a deck of cards, a book. I don’t. I cannot afford to be taken off guard if a customer suddenly arrives. I must be as efficient and quick as possible. How else will the men around me learn that a woman can do the job just as good and even better than them? I don’t care if I spend hours staring into nothingness or if my entire shift goes by with no customers coming to my booth. I must patient, waiting in case they come.

     Suddenly, a coin goes through the slot in front of me and I catch it just before it hits the table. I honestly didn’t think I would get my first customer of the shift so soon. I rapidly drop the coin into the sack to my right, the one that contains all the other coins. I wait for the customer’s selection to light up in the panel in front of me. I wait a few seconds. Then I wait a few seconds more. This customer must be one of the indecisive ones. Finally, the customer decides and the “Cola Soft Drink” selection lights up in front of me. I quickly turn to my left in my chair and mindlessly reach for the sodas in the top right corner. Cola sodas are the most requested ones. I then reach down into the dispenser in front of me and drop the soda. I see the customer’s hand reach in and grab it. This is my favorite part, seeing the customers reach in for our product. I can sense this will be a busy, busy night.