Juniper on Mars: A True life story retold

Who was there that day; a hot July in some random town outside of some random city?

America was dying, lost in a sea of some poo poo storm that came from nowhere, but here it was.

Tragic romance on the Fourth of July.

Fireworks exploding off of George Washington's head; Mt. Rushmore aglow as a Native American cried.

The Economy?

Screwing the pooch on Fifth and Vine, random black outs thrown in for good measure.

Lights flickering, some fat guy in a tall hat was singing operatic love songs about some skinny girl from Fresno.

Think her name was Rhonda or Blair, something like that, she was tall, I could kiss her if I stood on a stool on my tiptoes.

She giggled, her short knight, she called me.

I love Fresno, city of true angels, drunk on cheap alcohol bought at the drive through liquor store.

My hometown of Butte, Montana had them; drive through liquor stores, buy a pint from your Chevy, drive home, drink it, repeat.

Till you drove your car through the wall of a Dollar General.

Sad life of a Dollar General, fourteen months standing there, now its walls inside, the freezers crumpled into the jams and peanut butter.

The clerk crying, four more hours left in his shift, and here he is wondering what he did wrong in a previous life.

Killed a bunch of babies probably, God is mean like that.

Good people getting hosed by the system, mother nature, the Man himself upstairs.

Why?

Because they could.

I was here, now, wondering where a guy could buy some three day old bread, the peanut butter was splashed against the wall, broken glass littering the floor, the clerk still a mess.

"Why man, why?"

I shrugged. I wasn't a miracle worker, my own life was a broken jar of peanut butter on the Dollar General floor, the jelly a Picasso on the wall.

I tried to uplift the clerk's feelings.

"You a Picasso!!" I said, paying for my bread. The peanut butter; my life, spread across the floor. "Somebody should clean that up!"

The clerk cried again grabbing his mop.

A college educated fool discovering the professors were right; get tenure, be a professor of 1970s sit coms and such.

Don't work a real job.

Retail sucked.

I was there once, not a Dollar General, but a K-Mart.

I was too hot and bothersome for Walmart.

True story; the manager at Walmart said I was too cute for them, they wanted hard, I was too adorable, the customers loved me, the management team did not, so there I was, an Ex IT guy for the mob, tossed aside by them, rejected by Walmart for being too cute, working for Kmart as a cashier.

The store manager asked me at the interview one question - WHY THE F*CK DO YOU WANT TO WORK HERE?

My answer was "My childhood dream was to always work as a clerk at a Kmart store." I laughed. He laughed. I was hired that day; I was good.

Till one day I wasn't. For some reason known only to me and Jesus, I showed up drunk.

Cheap booze?

Nah, it was the good stuff, Black Velvet, whiskey that made you walk the streets of Memphis looking for hookers.

Too bad I was in the garden shop of a Kmart in Butte, Montana, not drinking on the job, did that at 1 am, had to be in at 7. I was able to walk, good even, then the customers showed up.

This job be a delight without them; most were nice but the ones you remembered were evil, screaming at you that they could get cheaper toilet paper at Walmart or the great aunts telling their great nieces "This is why you stay in school so you don't have to work the poo poo jobs!" except she didn't use the word poo poo.

The day I came in drunk, I panicked, I sold three trees for cheap, they didn't even ask, the boss saw. He smelled the liquor on my breath, terrible, you could hurt someone.

I kid, it wasn't that, it was selling the trees for cheap. Corporate monkeys were furious.

Chittering chattering away, they demanded my head but since this was America, they just fired me, branded me a coward, took away my "FSH - A fish with no eyes!" team member shirt.

I was crushed, my dream smashed by my own hands against the pavement. Devastation across my face, my buzz still strong though.

Good stuff Black Velvet.

I cried. Not really. A week later the management team killed what was left of the gardening shop cause they didn't water them.

Their punishment?

A year later, that Kmart along with most of the remaining stores shut down, killed by a dragon I guess, who knows, not even the last CEO; a dead rotting pigeon knew.

Cause he was dead.

That's the dream; years of profit and pleasure flushed down the drain; retirement funds, stock plans, soda cans, etc. plundered and the ones who got punished were the customers and the workers.

The CEO got a golden parachute.

Martha who had worked for Sears for twenty years, who like most thought her retirement funds would support her through 'the golden years' got to find another job at 73.

That was the fairy tale; no prince charming, no white horse, not even a letter stating some corporation stole her money cause well screw her.

And sadly all of it was legal; the government didn't care, the president, a Democrat, Republican, different through all the years, didn't matter, they all did it, golfed with that CEO every other weekend; Florida had great golf courses, the best.

Martha got a great view of them.

She got a job making $8.50 an hour ground keeping.

Keep up the good work Martha.

Maybe you'll die on the 7th hole. Heard it magnificent, God couldn't have created better.

The CEO? Moved on to another company; more retirement funds to plunder, arr, a pirate life for me!