If you've never sliced open a full case of pop with a box cutter, I don't recommend it. That's some highly-pressurized, sticky-ass diabetes-loving bullshit right there. And I didn't cut through just one can. No, I hacked that shit like the pop had done my family a tremendous personal wrong, and I was finally getting my revenge.

The angry fluorescent glow of Foodsave, the grocery store that helped me stay only two payments behind on my bills instead of three, made the vibrant pink of my cream soda shower glisten and glitter on my crisp, white Foodsave uniform. Head to toe in white linen. Why they didn't let us wear black pants was still a mystery to me, but goddamn, if the linen wasn't plastered to my skin like saran wrap now. I became painfully aware of my choice to wear black underwear. Not so much of a choice as I only had one bra that didn't jab exposed metal into my ribcage, but there I was, glorious in my cream soda-highlighted midnight-flavoured lingerie.

Sorry, it wasn't lingerie. Lingerie indicates some attempt at sexiness on my part. I'm wearing this bra so my boob skin doesn't tear apart by the end of the day. Maybe TMI, but there you go.

Just in case I didn't feel like enough of a bag of shit already, it was at this precise moment, as the cream soda continued to gush out of the dying cans, that Mikey, the assistant manager, decided to pry his second-year college ass out of the office long enough to see what the hell was going on in the store he was supposed to be managing. He doesn't give a shit most of the time, I haven't seen him down here for weeks, but today, let's see how things are going in the soft drink aisle. Fucking rad.

"Mackenzie!" Mikey slid to an exaggerated stop at the end of my aisle. I call it my aisle, but that's just a weird habit. The aisle I was in currently at this time, I guess.

My inner monologue and stream-of-consciousness thoughts are much more articulate than my worldly counterpart. I apologize in advance for what you're about to witness.

"Yeah, sorry, hi Mikey," I said, but it was all blurred together, so it blurted out as a sound. Maybe 'Mikey' was the only part that sounded like an actual word.

"Mikey?"

Right, shit. He likes being called Mikey about as much as I want to be called Mackenzie. Anyone who counts, and that's a very exclusive club, calls me Mac. Only he's the one who can take me one missed paycheque away from homelessness. Life's funny like that.

"Sorry, Mr. Vance," I said.

"Mackenzie," Mikey said, rushing past my edited address, pointing a stubby sausage finger at the ugly gash along the side of the case of pop. I nearly laughed as I thought of a Titanic joke but swallowed it. "I don't want to know how this happened. This is just careless, sloppy work. And we don't have room for careless, sloppy work here at Foodsave. Do we?"

"No, Mr. Vance," I said. I bowed my head. "I wasn't trying to cut the pop so hard, Mr. Vance. It just happened. Did the knife thing slip? Maybe? I might have been pressing too hard, or the box moved, or maybe I have freak arms, or maybe it's just my hands, or do these knives come with extra sharpness sometimes...?"

I trailed off, withering under Mikey's overplucked eyebrow. It's not that I necessarily had a problem with manscaping, or womanscaping, or anybody scaping anything. It's just that it was essential to know when to put the tweezers down.

"I don't care. If I were legally allowed to, I'd take the cost of the pop out of your next paycheque. But apparently, you have human rights, so I can't do that. Just don't let it happen again, you got it?" Mikey popped his fists on his hips for good measure. His shirt was tucked in all nice and tight into his black pants (item number 37 on my THIS IS BULLSHIT list), so it highlighted his paunchy little tummy oh-so-nicely.

Not that I'm one to talk. I'm not necessarily a big girl, but no one will say I'm underfed anytime soon. Benefits of a childhood with a father who stocked the house with 'stuff that kids like' while also never being there. Missing the name of the game on that one, pops.

"Yes, Mr. Vance." I tried not to laugh as the pop's flow finally began to ebb, which coincided with a high-pitched whistle out of half the cans. I was sadly mistaken if I'd hoped Mikey and I could enjoy a moment of shared comedy.

"One more like this, Mackenzie, and you're done. Do we understand each other?" Mikey wasn't having any of it. Was that part of his uncle owning the store? Why couldn't he be like the owner's relatives in movies, you know, where they act like jerks, roll up in fake-ass luxury cars like Miatas, and try to sleep with everyone in the store? No, I had to get the hardass college kid who thinks he'll be Warren Buffett one day. Or the king of Grocery Land. All hail, King Mikey.

"Of course, Mr. Vance, I won't let it happen again."

Do you see what I'm saying? In my head, all this rude shit is going on. But when I have to open my mouth to say anything, it's all meek and 'sorry' this, and 'I don't deserve to bask in your presence' that. Was it my living situation that gave way to this subservient toad cowering in front of Mikey...sorry, Mr. Vance? It was tenuous at best, but it was either that or tracking down my father.

The worst thing about that was that tracking down my father was a distant second.

"Clean this up and carry on," Mikey ordered and searched for someone else to harass. As he stomped off, a flash of me flinging another pop can at the back of his bulbous head brought a smile to my face, but it vanished as soon as a thousand-year-old woman arrived to ask me where we stock the 'goddamn cinnamon.'

"Right down aisle six, ma'am, if you'll just follow me," came my snot-nosed reply.

Man, I love my job.