I stand across the room from my sister, rocking from foot to foot as she vents about her day. It was extra humid today and her store was extra busy and extra understaffed. Besides, her uniform is all black and she has to wear a smock over it, so she is demonstrably upset as she vulgarizes the English language in an attempt to express to me the frustration of her nine hour shift. My mind begins to wander.
I am currently on what might be considered a sabbatical if I were working in my field of study or a leave of absence if I had some big swank office somewhere, but since I am a waitress at some corporate joint is called ‘medical leave’ and entails nothing more than getting to keep my service years uninterrupted. In short, I am taking on each day as it comes. Mostly I keep my nephew while my sister’s at work and in exchange get to eat and sleep and do whatever else I want in her apartment.
Sometimes while she’s at work, I rearrange the furniture. Whole rooms.
So I’m not working. I’ve been home all day writing. Talking on the phone. Definitely not putting up with cranky and possibly dehydrated customers. My sister is herself cranky as she retells the most poignant moments of her shift: having to call in the assistant manager for backup help, running out of bags, customers bitching about no bags, my sister bitching about all of it.
I could care less about any of it. But I smile and nod and try to remember some of the swear words for later use. I want to tell her to chill, then I think about what an ass I was coming home from work this last year, venting, worse than venting, forcing the anger out like fire from a pot-bellied stove when all I needed was to let the heat and smoke roll away in their own time. I want to tell her to stop caring, these minor stupid details don't really matter, not at all, in any scheme of anything. But they have this way of getting you to care.
My sister waves her hands a lot when she swears, I think to myself.
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