I’m at work. Oh, the unfettered joy. It’s my fourth anniversary with Walmart. I’m shocked I made it this long considering how much working retail has eroded my faith in humankind. People are such a good idea on paper.

Here, in sauna-like Central Florida, the kiddies return to school tomorrow. We are experiencing School Supply Hell. And, I’m jealous of the little buggers. I want to be buying some for myself.

We are slammed and the customers’ attitudes have slid quickly since early this morning. The slide is about the same as the downgrade through the Sierra Nevada Mountains. I’ve seen plenty of semis with brakes on fire driving that grade. It’s unnerving.

Many of us Essential Cashiers are getting lip from customers such as, “Why is it so busy?” I love that one; “Where are all the cashiers?”; “Why aren’t there more registers open?” I am preparing some smartass responses that, alas, I will never be able to utter, if I want to keep not living in a box under I-4 or the 417. Here’s a sample: “Oh, I’m sorry, we ran out of cashier chow and a few of our cashiers got weak and fainted. They are in the ER at Orlando Health.” Or, “Hey, yeah, sorry, our cashier cloning program was put on hold by the CDC.” Or, “Yeah, our cashier breeders are still hard at work researching shortening the gestation period. So y’all will have to tolerate the standard nine months until they make serious progress. My apologies.”

In other news: In honor of my anniversary, I treated myself to Salad Roulette. You never know how much will be edible. I think this a partial win as it does not totally look like a Panera Bread salad.