Her alarm buzzes at 8 o’clock on a sunshiny Saturday morning, the best way to put a hormonal teenage girl in an angry mood.She wiggles herself out of the warm embrace of her sheets, throws them in an unorganized fashion and drags her grumpy corpse to the washroom to cleanse the tiredness off of her skin. She makes her way to the kitchen to find her beloved cereal box hidden in the depths of the pantry. All the remains are poured into the plastic bowl and white powder of the frosted wheat flakes leap into the open air and make their way to the lungs of a bitter youth. She sits to catch her breath after rounds of coughing. Afterward, she quietly crumples the empty bag hoping she doesn’t wake the sleeping giant. Sadly, luck was not on her side. The silhouette makes its presence in the kitchen. Soon enough, we hear the skips of an overly joyful mother and the lyrics to “Singing in the Rain” rattling the picture frames and the brains of close to every living thing in the city. The mother's chants of “Good Morning” isn’t making her morning good. Today she has to work. Once she finishes her breakfast, she goes in her bedroom to dress into her Levi’s and Calvin Klein apparel ready to promote. After a goodbye from her mother, she slumps onto the seat her Suzuki Swift and hits the road.

The drive to the Charlottetown Mall is usually smooth sailing like a boat on a river, with a few rocky points here and there. What the teenager doesn’t expect to see is a vehicle collision at the intersection with the KFC. Policemen gather waving their arms in a windmill like motion, alerting drivers when it’s their turn to go. She sits in her Suzuki Swift being cautious of the time passing by. For a solid ten minutes, she has to endure the constant vibration of her steering wheel sending chills from the nerves in her fingers all the way to her brain, as well as the angry drivers beeping their horns to hurry the process. At this point, her head feels like it’s being hit with a hammer. Just what she needed before an 8-hour work shift. In spite of the ruckus, she manages to get to the mall with five minutes to spare.

As soon as she gets out of her car, she sprints like Usain Bolt to the entrance. Then she opens the door to enter the empty cavern known as the Charlottetown Mall. This place is so empty that it’s almost impossible to talk without someone hearing you. Without any time to eat, the poor sweaty hungry soul trudges her way through the doors of her work and goes to put her necessities in the back room. She eyes the plastic chair calling her name to come and have a nap. “Not right now”, she mouths to herself. After a breath of the not so fresh air, she glues on her fake smile and steps out to the selling zone.

“How’s it going Baby Carrot?” is the first sentence that comes out of her assistant manager’s mouth. He knows she detests that nickname. Before she gets to answer, he starts giggling harder than a monkey eating a banana. “You know, I’m just like any other teenager on a Saturday morning,” she replies. She makes her way to the large computer monitors when she’s suddenly stricken by bright bold blue letters spelling the word “refund”, along with her name and a total of $250. In her head, it looks more like the words “sucks to be you”, since her boss tells her she has to make $2045 in sales. In addition, there are absolutely no customers to be seen within the store. In order to kill some time, the employees decide to pick off chores to be completed. Hoping to avoid the mess of the clearance wall, she makes her way to the front and starts folding the shirts on the table. “What are you doing up front? You’re cleaning the back,” declares her the assistant manager. She sighs under her breath and leaves to go hang out with her annoying companion, the clearance wall.

Time ticks by fairly slow as she plucks away through the colorful rainbow of fabrics. She carefully untangles the spaghetti straps of the cotton camisole from the lace bodysuit without touching the edges of the delicate holes as if she was playing “Operation”. The employee then proceeds to the velvet dresses, tying lace-up backs as the fabric sends quivers up her spine for each stroke in the wrong direction. Eventually, she completes the combing process and manages to endure the constant clattering sound of the hangers bunching together after each sweep. The next task that’s to be completed is to refold the East Coast Lifestyle sweaters into bunches. She gets a first glance at the section and it looks like it was hit by Hurricane Katrina, but she is confused since it did not look like that when she initially came into work. One of her coworkers explains that a family came and purchased five sweaters and had a hard time making up their mind. Realising she missed the opportunity to add $325 to her sales, she lets out a big moan and starts emptying shelves.

The clock strikes one o’clock and her manager, the big boss, clocks into work. In the span of three hours, the store managed to make an extra $1500 in sales, yet the girl only made around $200, compared to the other two employees from this morning who made around $600 each. “There’s no time for slacking, you need to boost your sales,” states her manager in a cross tone. Holding in her outrageous screams that could shatter windows, she simply apologizes and says she’ll work harder. She decides to stick around the front of the store where most of the customers like to wander. Like the good employee she is, she goes to check up on customers to make sure they're finding everything alright. Most of them reply with the typical “I don’t need any help” or “I’m alright”, however, a lady around the age of fifty simply gave the teen a stone cold stare that pierces her heart, leaving her a little shook. Finally, after a painful amount of time, a young Swedish basketball player walks in looking like a modern skyscraper. He walks up to the employee with a curiosity about Silver jeans. Immediately, she directs him to the wall of denim blues, grabbing the legs of the soft fabric and stretching them like an accordion to showcase its elasticity. The Swed insists that he would like to decide on his own whether or not he wanted to try them on, so she distances herself praying that she catches him in need. The wait is agonizing and leaves her tapping her foot in annoyance. All of a sudden, she hears a distant call for help that sneaks into her eardrum, but when she turns around, her coworker strides through with a stick in her hand taking away a great opportunity. Within minutes, she witnessed $300 walk away, completely ignoring her goodbye on the way out the door. The manager comes to alert her that it’s time for her break but demands that she thinks about what she could work on so that she doesn’t fall behind any further than where she’s at. After agreeing, she slowly plods to the back room, slumps onto the chair and releases the dialogue of an R-rated movie out of her annoyed heart.

The young adult’s day comes near its end, but the long and dreadful last hour of work steps in. Typically called “happy hour”, it seems like it’s going to be anything but happy. Even if two other employees came in after her, they still manage to have higher stats. Her motivation is almost empty, but one hopeful looking customer steps into her sight. This is her only chance. She pleasantly greets the customer with the biggest grin that it’s almost obvious how she’s feeling. The old hick demands help to pick out a new outfit for a wedding. As he conveys, each word flows out of his mouth and into the nostrils of the clean sober teen , letting out a mighty cough every once and awhile. Dizzied by whiffs of Hennessy, she goes on reaching for the desired button up and blazer then selects a pair of seemingly appropriate trousers. The countryman leaves to go in his fitting room along with a mountain of clothes, as well as some requests for other sizes and different styles. The employee then proceeds to break a sweat running back and forth like a puppy playing fetch. Thankfully, the customer finds quite a few items that tickle his fancy and requests for the girl to prepare them at the cash register. “It’s about time!” she thinks as she paces to the counter removing pinned tags, wincing each time she stabs herself. She counts a total of 7 items adding up to a total of $275, a significant boost to increase her stats. The old hick exits the fitting room after many minutes, approaches the girl and places his crusty hand on the girl's bare shoulder, giving her sensation of spiders climbing up her arms and down her legs. He takes a deep breath and lets out a phrase that triggers the teenager into complete hysteria. “I think I change my mind, but I greatly appreciate your assistance.” Without any disturbance, the customer exits the store and there struck six o’clock, time for her to leave with only $900 under her name.