Day Eighty - Bionic

After bombing that interview, I had all but given up on the idea of securing a gig in the World's Fair, and though I knew from the outset that it would have been for a few months only, I found the pay an enticing enough idea that having missed out on that opportunity sure stinged a bit. In the meantime, my buddy 'James' had started working at a convenience store, and spurred by that, I also quickly found a job a covenience store - the same chain, but from a different franchisee. I started working there part-time, and then I moved to full-time after a while. The pay was atrotious, but I really didn't care. I made enough to pay for my comics and for my CDs, and that was good enough. I don't think I had been working there for more than a few weeks when I got the call from that stinky interview saying that they had a spot for me, but me being the absolute blockhead I've always been, just told them no. Not even that payola seemed a prospect that was that alluring to me. Plus, I didn't want to work twelve hour shifts. Why would I ever want to make four times or more as much as I was making part-time, which really wasn't part time because I had seven hour shift, anyway? Dumb fuck me stuck to the crappy job. Which, admittedly, was crappy, the pay was super crappy, but I got along with everyone really well. And that, I suppose, was enough to keep me there for a few months. Oh, my stay there wasn't terribly long, I think I stayed there for some seven months or so only. It was a never a long term thing, and to keep things interesting, I eventually started swiping dough from the till - one of my duties was also manning the register when needed, and I do remember something happening that aggravated me, so to 'punish' that slight I swiped from the till intermittently, never a lot, but enough that I could put up what I was lifting together to muy me a Green Lantern powerb ring - something I have to this day. I know that from a certain point on, they were onto me, and that might have precipitated my choice to leave. But much before I left - I know this was before summer that year, so maybe mid to late spring, something terrible happened. One day I was working, doing my normal stuff at the store, when my pager rang - yep, these were the pre-cell phone days - and as I read the message from Dora that asked me to call her urgently because her mother had just died, I knew at once that things were never going to be the same again. I asked my supervisor if I could make that phone call, and after being given the go ahead, I called Dora to find out what had happened. Her mother had been run over by a car just as she was leaving work earlier that day... a damn stupid way for someone to die. Alas, her tragedies were not yet over.