The price of freedom is penury. The aftermath of my store's closing has become afterplay: corporate has screwed us and now the state government is completing the ill-fated encounter. The other day, I saw the corpse of that pathetic store from the window of a lurching bus. I almost smiled at the sight of the fallen beast. Little guy reality has confronted me; who really won on March 11?

What sufferer of profound retardation ravenously scrambles for what the vultures rejected? The last crew of #4273 found out. Unfathomably stupid purchases were the order of the day. One bag of trailer trash actually selected a shoe with no mate. I shook my head, glanced into her begging eyes and told her it was free. If I'd charged the dolt, the shoe wouldn't have cost more than three cents.

The final markdown was 98 percent--a number which likely surpassed that of the combined IQ of all the revelers in idiots' mecca. Such quantities of utterly useless items were scanned as to overload the registers, causing them to shut down. We had to break down orders into multiple transactions to avoid this problem. Some orders took about 50 minutes to complete. If you buy garbage that is of no practical use whatsoever, you've saved nothing--markdowns notwithstanding.

Three plugs of chewing tobacco and the smell of cleaning spray were all that remained of that retail blunder at the final closing time. I was eligible for severance pay and unemployment benefits; the world was mine. For the first time, that stagnant cesspool made me crack a genuine smile as I emerged from the west door that afternoon. It was the dawn of a new life, as I had taken what I thought could be my last order.

The end of my cashiering life was it's apex. In due time, douchebag LLC would mail me a check just for giving them the finger. Throwing my name tag and and dunking my uniform shirt in an outdoor trashcan was the coronation of my glorious victory over the corporate slime.

Like Napoleon triumphantly returning from Elba, I proudly went home donning a bleached wife-beater. Cognizance was in the background of my psyche while disbelief and elation dominated a mind once enslaved to the stress and loathing of register life. We severance seizers had won the battle. Then again, who typically wins the war?

When I was issued severance, the uber-Big Brother kicked my ass. I lost 25 percent of the once decent sum that corporate coughed up to the federal government's raiders. In reality, this amount will merely supplement chump change unemployment checks that can never hope to cover both bills and living expenses. At this point, I still have wine and food. Should the former become cost prohibitive, the American axis of evil will discover who it has prison fucked. I've got a few shanks stashed in my cell.

For the first time since 1998, I left home without wearing an undershirt. Maybe that's what jinxed my latest Wal-Mart interview. With that defeat, I've likely run out of good job opportunities for the time being. Jan. 20, 2006--my last day in fast-food. Never again. Fry grease is surely avoidable, but a swift departure from cashiering was merely a wet dream. Dreams are for suckers and six-year-olds.

Reality's a screaming dike bitch; and it's dragging down us all. Unemployment insurance is paying me $122 a week. I used to make about that much. In those pathetic days, I lived in lowlife apartments and was accustomed to eating nothing. Recently, I've been bold enough to purchase meat. Goddamn it, steak sauce cannot be used on Ramen noodles. Surely, you remember living this far below the poverty line. What's even trickier is finding a job that pays more than this despicable sum.

Nervousness forgotten, I showed remarkable poise at the Wal-Mart interview. I made the manager laugh when I referred to a former employer as "obsessive compulsive." I didn't much give a damn about the outcome. That was before I got my first ornate check from the TWC. Tomorrow is a new day and an interview I'll likely cancel. "Hours may vary," I was told over the phone. We all know what that really means. At the conclusion of the Wal-Mart interview, I heard the words "full-time" and suddenly cared enough to wish I'd worn fresh underwear.

My last employer started me off at 20 hours a week as a produce clerk and ultimately gave me double that on front-end. The $6.90 job I've been trashing all this time was cushy and lucrative in comparison to my previous gigs. Why all this grief and poverty? There are good jobs in the service industry; just not held by anybody I know. Many of these require experience. How does a shit-shoveler get experience if nobody gives him a chance?

We get interviewed for these positions and fantasize about the possibilities. We end up strapping on a headset and dropping baskets of curly fries. In this business, the knock of opportunity is an auditory hallucination. Apparently, seven years of retail experience and an actual desire to work nights isn't enough. Neither is a rudimentary command of the English language and basic grooming skills. Who the fuck do I have to give oral pleasure to in order to get 35 hours a week? Fuck all these asswipes and their clip-on ties.

Napoleon lost and died young with a potbelly. In the end, it all comes back to a magnum of Chardonnay and "Paint it, Black."