The train to Hell has ran out of track. "We are continuing to evaluate the long term viability of every store in this division ... After reviewing all of the options for your location, we have made the difficult decision to close your store," according to an information packet issued to my store's workers. The packet was authored by Dallas-Fort Worth Division President William Emmons.

My store is among the fallen in corporate's casualty list. Albertson's, now formally Albertson's LLC, has commenced a new round of closings. On Jan. 26, mandatory meetings were held to inform employees of the decision. We got the news only one business day before the media was alerted. The closing date is March 11. For those of us who depended on this job to survive, we've got until then to find meaningful employment.

When the failing supermarket corporation changed hands last year, closings were the ostensibly the first order of business. As locations were put up against the wall and shot nationwide, employee meetings were held. In the meeting I attended, the store director speculated that our store had been spared due to substantial profits during the 1990s. This store has failed to turn a profit since the turn of the century.

Employees from defunct stores were transferred to my location and likely all others. Front end and other departments were overwhelmed by a gratuitous boost in labor. Consequently, hours of current employees were cut drastically. As I was temporarily reduced to penury, the transfers were shafted harder. I estimate that no less than 90 percent of these workers left the company within two months of being transferred. They were transferred only to be gotten rid of. This bleak scenario is certain to be repeated. If I sought a transfer, meager bus service would surely be an issue while being scheduled for 15 hours a week or less. This sound hypothetical translates to a $600 per month cut in pay and no chance to earn a living.

Bearing this in mind, I opted against requesting a transfer on yesterday's deadline. Having been with the company for more than a year, I'm eligible for a severance package worth two weeks of base pay. I'll be damned if I let Albertson's screw me one last time. I'll just get prison banged by Big Brother. The odiuos federal government will pilfer 25 percent of the lump sum, not to mention state income tax and typical payroll deductions.

A Jan. 29 story by The Dallas Morning News offered a half-assed overview of the closings. The story, a mere six paragraphs, reported that the 450 metroplex employees affected would be offered transfers and may collect severance pay if elligible. The News neglected to investigate or at least report what this actually means, leaving indifferent fools to conclude that Albertson's is taking care of its' own. This is what most customers seem to think. There will be no layoffs. Employers pay unemployment taxes based on the number of former employees who collect benefits. The fewer employees who file for benefits, the lower their employer's tax. Just an inconsequential detail.

With joblessness a vivid threat, things other than cash flow seem painfully trivial. My store is only one of two kosher supermarkets in the metroplex. The closing has Jewish customers up in arms and has figured prominently in the one-dimensional news coverage. Customers who have the money for kosher meats from chicken to lamb and $13.49 per pound pastrami balk at the notion of making the trip to Dallas' other kosher store. Kosher meat is exorbitantly expensive and even Gentiles' meat is a luxury item.

They whine, but every time they drop lamb and veal on my checkstand, I fantasize about these succulent meats and barely recall what they taste like. Fantasy is a prominent vice of the common worker. At my register last weekend, I was salivating over an issue of Sunset Wine & Food magazine. After reading reviews of expensive Rieslings, I fixated on photographs of fine cheeses. It occurred to me just how trivial these things have become in my life; and that the closing announcement of the previous day had moved them so much further from my reach.

On Tuesday night, I helped drive a few ceremonial nails into the coffin. I volunteered to hang signs for the massive repricing project. Last year, I hung price tags for mediocre sales and price increases that were sure to send discerning customers elsewhere. Most of those hanging yellow tags that boasted "new lower price" have been supplanted by prices equal to or greater than those of pre-LLC Albertson's.

Overtime is being handed out across the store for likely the first time in the building's existence. I got 50 hours last week and am expecting the same this week. Meanwhile, balls to the wall job hunting is the main priority. Against a passionate vow to myself, I'm seeking fast-food employment after one year of drive-thru celibacy.

A Feb. 1 memo was attached to yesterday's paychecks. The bullshit love letter to Albertson's mentioned the closings and shifted to typical corporate grandiosity. "As we move forward, it is important and necessary that each one of us work every day to provide the best customer service and look for ways to drive sales and reduce costs ... Now, we must continue to WOW those customers ... Team, we are on the brink of success in our division ... I can feel your positive energy and enthusiasm when I am in the stores," Emmons wrote.

As for myself, and undoubtedly the rest of the collateral damage, I'd like to bitch slap the esteemed Emmons. Or, maybe, I'd like enough blood in the streets to wash away my piss and vinegar. A full-scale riot on Coit Road would be nice, complete with burning cars, plundered shops and the terrified screams of those who make more than $15,000 a year. Maybe I'll just blare "Paint it, Black" repeatedly while seething with a magnum of Chardonnay.

Yielding to my constant fatalism could have spared me this. There were entirely too many slow days at the store. I was surprised that the location wasn't Jettisoned during the initial closings of 2006. I've heard that this closing was a last-minute decision. My co-workers showed shock, anger and desperation. Notices of the Jan. 26 meetings were posted by the time clock, and I thought I knew what it was about. Pessimists hate to be right.

I got the news second-hand in a state of nicotine deprivation. I laughed it off and hurried out to lunch. Reality dawned the next morning. As I approached the time clock the following day, the familiar angst and desperation of unemployment permeated my psyche. There's a decent chance in retail Hell of me beating the deadline. I've pushed with worse odds.