The golden rays shining through the automatic doors is the only reminder that a world existed outside of the windowless DG Market. The light falls on the carefully arranged display of preservative-filled baked goods and makes them glow like the treasure in an Indiana Jones movie. Like that treasure, they are not worth the cost of acquiring them. The fruit pies are sickly sweet. The cakes are dry. The donuts sometimes have fruit flies. But in the lying sunlight, they look worthy of the finest bakery in Paris.
In my spot behind the cash register, I try not to tap my foot as the old man waffles over whether to buy a Snickers or a pack of gum. There are eight people behind him, and the motion sensor that summons me to help customers is shrieking like a car alarm. Eeeeh. It neither knows nor cares that I am already here waiting. The man finally places his purchases on the counter, and the mindless routine begins.
“How are you doing this evening, sir?”
“Never been better,” he growls.
“Would you like a bag?”
“Already have one at home.” He laughs, his tobacco-scented breath as foul as his outdated sense of humor. It’s the same joke and the same laughter of every old man who comes in those sliding doors.
I scan his items and set them on the counter. Beep. Beep. Beep. I tell him his total. He hands me a twenty. I hand him his change.
“Have a good evening.”
The next customer, a woman, comes up to the counter with her cart of groceries. The four boxes of cereal probably mean that there’s a sale. If it doesn’t ring up correctly, I’ll need to find my manager. There’s seven people in line behind her, and the alarm is still ringing to summon help that isn’t coming.
“Hello. How are you doing this evening?”
“Good. How are you doing?”
“Good.”
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
More people have joined the line.
Beep. Eeeeh. Beep. Eeeeh. Beep. Eeeeh.
Beepbeepbeepbeepbeep
Eeeeh.
“Your total is $149.50.”
“The cereal boxes were supposed to be four for twelve dollars. Did the sale come off?”
“One second, let me check…”
My heart sinks as I scroll up through the list of items and fail to see the colored line of text that would indicate the discount. I hold back a sigh and give a polite apology.
“Sorry, it doesn’t seem to have worked.”
“I know what I saw on the sign. It’s four for twelve dollars, or I don’t want them.”
Eeeeh.
“I’ll go check the sign, sorry for the inconvenience.”
I hurry to the cereal aisle, leaving behind the growing line of irritated customers. The alarm shrills its disapproval. I scan the aisle, looking for the green and yellow sticker. It says four boxes for twelve dollars, just like the lady said. Then, I notice the fine print. The sale excludes the seasonal flavors. I am pretty sure the lady had one of the fourth of July themed boxes in her cart. I speed walk back to my place behind the counter and explain the issue. I ask if she wants to exchange the seasonal box for one that meets the parameters of the sale.
“No, I don’t want any of them then.”
Eeeeh.
The customers in the line are complaining about the long wait. In between the blasts of the alarm, I overhear muttered disparagements of my generation’s ability to perform basic tasks. A line of talk as familiar as that accursed noise. There’s a lake a couple minutes’ walk from the store. Its cool waters would drown the incessant shrieking of that alarm. But it wouldn’t do anything about the low mumbling of the customers’ complaints. Unless I threw myself in the lake too.
“Sorry about that, just give me a moment to remove the cereal from the total.”
According to company procedure, this is the point when I should go get my manager to type in the authorization for deleting an item. Instead, I follow unofficial store procedure and pull out the battered piece of paper with the list of all my managers’ codes. My fingers fly across the touch screen as I type in the long code for each box, but from the disapproving stare and finger-tapping-on-purse that the lady is doing, I am not fast enough. I give her the new total, which she accepts, and I stack the abandoned cereal boxes on the safe behind me as she leaves, and the next customer, a man wearing a suit and a scowl, steps up to the register. I give him a forced smile.
“Sorry about the wait, how may I help you tonight?”
More customers pass by the register, their eyes dead and their voices monotonous.
“Hello. How are you doing?”
“Good.”
“Would you like a bag?”
“Yes.”
“Your total is…”
“$16.49.” “$15.82.” “$47.04.” “$374.75” “$2.12”
Eeeeh. Eeeeh. Eeeeh. Eeeeh. Eeeeh.
The shrieking of the alarm distracts from every other thought. My arm and vocal chords move robotically. The customers, man and woman, young and old, white and Hispanic, are as faceless and interchangeable as default profile pictures.
“Hello. How are you doing?”
“Good. How are you doing?”
“Good.”
No. Enough lying.
“Terrible.”
The woman laughs sympathetically. This isn’t a laughing matter. There are 10 people in line now. The alarm is screaming like a fire engine. The ice ran out several hours ago, so I don’t even have the reprieve of going outside to feel the kiss of the sunlight and the bite of the cold box and the silence of being away from that alarm. The chest of ice is kept locked to prevent people from stealing $2.35 worth of solid water. This close to the lake, with its campgrounds and party houses, ice is a precious commodity. It will be three days before we get another shipment, and I’ll have to spend all of them telling every fifth customer that they need to go to the overpriced gas station or drive the fifteen minutes to the nearest proper grocery store if they want to keep their beer cans cool while they are out fishing in their rented pontoon boat. How I long for the silence of the ice chest and the peace of the cigarette-smoke scented parking lot.
“I’m going to kill that alarm.”
She laughs even more. Her artificial blond curls shake with her mirth. Her cart is full of snacks and décor that I imagine is for the fancy second home with a lakeside view that her husband bought in hope that “family bonding” would save their dying marriage. I’ve seen plenty of her kind. Since we’re the closest thing to a grocery store for nearly six miles, a lot of the rich lake folks come here to shop rather than drive the extra ten minutes to Walmart.
“I’m sure that sound must get on your nerves,” she says. “It’s driving me crazy.”
Crazy. I’ve heard it in my dreams. Even in my sleep, I cannot escape its torment.
Eeeeh. Eeeeh. Eeeeh. Eeeeh. Eeeeh.
“I’m not kidding,” I say. “I’m going to kill it.”
I can barely hear myself over the sound. The bones in my chest reverberate like I’m at the world’s worst concert.
Eeeeh. Eeeeh. Eeeeh.
All of the customers are laughing now. I’m the star comedian at Dollar General. The laughter is almost as bad as the beeping, but the beeping is louder.
One of them says, “I’d kill myself if I had to work with that thing going all day.”
The knuckles on my left hand grow white as I clench the edge of the counter and fight the urge to scream.
“Your total is 256.78.”
Eeeeh. Eeeeh. Eeeeh.
The next customer comes up, but I can’t even hear his compulsory greeting.
Eeeeh. Eeeeh. Eeeeh.
I straighten my posture and turn away from the finger-print stained counter. Silently, methodically, I turn from the customers and walk. It’s eight paces to the end of the cashier aisle. Left turn. Five paces to where the alarm sits. It’s an innocent looking white rectangular prism, with a flashing red LED like the eye of Satan. I pick it up and walk. If the customers call after me, I can’t hear them over the beeping. The device shakes with the power of its sonorous output. It’s thirty-seven steps from where the alarm is kept to the automatic doors. Three steps from the first door to the outside. The dying sun casts a triumphant light on my travels. clouds shine in the sky like a Renaissance painting of the coming of the white rider on his holy steed. I walk out of the parking lot, down the road, and into the small state park. The steps between the store and the lake shore are counted in the accursed beeps of the alarm in my hands. At the edge of the lake shore, I pause. The sunlight dances on the water. The waves lap calmly on the shore. The alarm screams in my hands.
Eeeeh.
I raise my right hand like a pitcher about the strike out Babe Ruth and win the World Series. The white shape sails through the air. It is almost beautiful in the glow of the sun. It splashes into the welcoming lake, and rings of golden circles spreads out from it. Finally, there is silence.
When I get back to the store, I find that my manager has finally made herself useful and taken over my role at the cash register. The group of customers who witnessed my rebellion have already been processed and passed back out the sliding doors. A new queue stands placidly waiting. When I relieve my manager and retake my post, she asks me where I went. It seems she has not noticed my crime. I tell her I just needed a break, and she says to let her know first next time. I acquiesce and turn to the customer standing in line.
“Hello. How are you doing?”
The same script as before, but in between the lines, there is blessed silence. At least, there should be. In the chambers of my mind, a memory, a ghostly cry rises to shatter the peace.
Eeeeh. ◆
Samantha Mager is a junior at University of the Cumberlands. She is an Elementary and Middle School Education Major with an emphasis in Math. She is from a small town in western Maryland. She loves the Appalachian mountains, writing, and her two rabbits.
Pensworth 