Episode 3 : Welcome to Wal-mart

“Welcome to Wal-mart,” I said for the thousandth time that night. “Can I help you find anything today?”

What was the point? The teens coming in didn’t even notice me. They were too busy talking to each other to notice a senior citizen. A senior-senior citizen. Sometimes I wondered why Wal-mart even had door greeters. Then I’d look down at the stupid yellow highlighter in my hand and remember. I was also supposed to check receipts as customers left the building. I could just picture the committee that came up with the concept:

“So, guys,” the leader would say--it would have to be men, since women would have come up with something better--“We need to think of some way to keep shoplifters out of our store.”

“How about arming the clerks?” one would say.

“Yeah!” another would chime in. “Guns. Lots of guns.”

They’d all laugh at how pop-cultured they were, and then wistfully think about quitting their business jobs to be able to shoot at customers. Eventually, someone would say, “Too many potential lawsuits.”

“How about lasers?” People were big on lasers these days--especially men.

“Too expensive.”

“What if we sent an electrical current through the floor and when people tried to shop lift, we lit ‘em up like the Fourth of July.”

The others would be temporarily awed by the ability of one of their colleagues to properly use a simile, but then they’d dismiss the idea out of jealousy. That’s when the genius idea would come up.

“I know. What if we hired geriatrics to stand by the door and welcome people when they came in? We’d look like we were giving old folks a leg up and just being friendly, but then we’d have all the ‘door greeters’ check people’s bags and receipts on the way out and make sure they paid for everything.”

This would be met with stunned silence. A brave soul would speak up. “What would the old people do if someone actually tried to shoplift? I mean, they’re old. If someone wants to, they can just run away from them.”

For a tense moment, it would look like the idea had been shot down, as well. But then someone else would say, “What if we give the old folks yellow highlighters?”

And that would be that.

“Welcome to Wal-mart,” I said to a mother and daughter that came traipsing by. They looked at me, then laughed and kept walking. I took a step after them, my hand clutched tightly around the yellow highlighter, but then Bob--my supervisor--walked by and glared at me. It wasn’t fair. I was a three hundred and fifty year old vampire. In my prime, I had been able to stare down nobles and entrance my victims until they were begging me to feed. And now, a middle aged, balding, overweight waste of human flesh could cow me into submission. But what could I do?

I needed the money.

It wasn’t like I could register for Social Security. They’d get suspicious after I never died, and then there might be newscasters who’d pick up the story and it would all be “world’s oldest Wal-mart greeter” from then on out. And sure, maybe that would be fun for fifty years or so, but sooner or later, people would get suspicious, and then there’d be torches and flaming windmills. Technology might have changed, but I had a feeling they’d fall back on the old reliable formula. And who cared if it was originally used on Frankenstein’s monster, not vampires?

So I was stuck at the only job that would take me after McDonald’s fired me for getting nose hairs in the French fries.

It wouldn’t always be this way, though. One day, I’d be stronger. One day, I’d feed again. And when that day came, I’d be ready. I’d look into the eyes of all the people who came to shop at Wal-mart, and I’d put them each into a trance, including all the workers. Then, I’d suck like I’d never sucked before. And when I was through, the world would feel my wrath. Nations would kneel. Kings would cower. And other alliterative stuff would happen, all of it to my glory.

One day.

I stepped back into place and sighed.

“Welcome to Wal-mart.”

<Previous Back Next>