Krusty Corral

Jamantha debated throwing away her name tag for the umpteenth time that day. She liked her name since it was different enough to invite conversation without being obnoxious, even if her uncle called her parents lazy about it. The problem lay in the customers she dealt with who thought nobody had caught the misspelling or were fond of acting like six-year-olds and singing that damn song. She fucking hated Shirley Ellis for that song.

Noting that it was time to bring another stack of plates to the feeding trough, she sighed, gave up twisting her tag, and grabbed a stack of plates. Heading out to the buffet line, she put them into the holder next to the less-than-appetizing food and looked over her domain of feeders for the evening.

There were only a few families left picking at the food on their plates and having conversations. One of the kids from the family at the back had a panicked look on his adorable little face as the ice cream machine filled his bowl towards the top in a long stream of gooey ice cream stretched from the nozzle to his soon-to-be sticky disaster.

She hurried to the machine and calmed him with a few words of encouragement as she lifted the handle back into the stop position. He had been just tall enough to jump and activate it, but it required more strength than his little body possessed to jump back up and push the lever off. She had been asking her manager for weeks to fix it, and it sometimes stuck when switched on. She ushered the boy toward his family after helping him at the toppings bar beside it. He chose gummy worms and Oreo crumbs to his mother’s smile and a frown from his father.

Ignoring the father’s expression, she continued around the dining room and wiped down tables while putting up chairs in preparation for closing. Dave would pitch a fit. She was doing that before the last customer had left, but she didn’t care too much. She only needed to hold down this job for two more weeks before the fall semester started, and she had a date after work, thank god, for dating apps. She didn’t have time or money to cruise the bars dealing with deuche bags.

As she was putting up the chairs of the last unoccupied tables, the families had gathered their things and started shuffling toward the doors. The mother, who had smiled at her, was attempting to help her son put on his jacket near the doors while the father was having a heated discussion with her manager, Dave.

Sighing again at the sight, she kept working to clear the tables that had just been vacated and put up more chairs. She would need to help with clearing the trough and wrapping up closing chores before she could rush home for a quick shower before her date. The greasy fried chicken was not her perfume of choice for the hunt.

Dave wrapped up the conversation with the man after handing him some small slips of paper coupons for his next family feeding, she supposed and locked up the doors behind the last of the patrons to leave. With a comical look of concern, he marched over to her after he locked the doors and spoke,

“Jamantha, that last customer was complaining you gave his kid ice cream? I had to comp him a free meal to calm him down. What happened?”

She gripped the washcloth in one hand and her spray bottle in the other tightly as she reigned in her anger at the accusation and asked in return,

“You mean he bitched about me helping his kid not get ice cream all over the floor from the broken machine I’ve asked you to fix for the last three weeks? It’s an all-you-can scarf buffet, Dave. He could have gone with his kid to the buffet line if he was concerned about health choices, or shit, I don’t know. Maybe cooked a real meal for his family?”

Okay, so maybe some of her anger leaked out there, but she was so tired of the carte blanche bullshit complaints of feeders over the summer at this shitty job. It was evident that Dave was just as tired of her failure to toe the line of propriety when he responded,

“I’ve warned you about your language, Jamantha. Our corporate policy is to have a clean kitchen and employee behavior, including language. I won’t ask again after this write-up. You won’t have to worry about it either since you’ll have to find a new place of employment.”

Jamantha seethed at this but needed to hold on for two more weeks to cover her rent before moving back to dorm life. She bit her tongue at a scathing reply that would have given this little shit stain of a feeder an aneurysm,

“I understand, Dave. Can I help the kitchen staff with their closing so we can all get out of here a little quicker tonight?”

She was proud of herself for the strained smile she gave him, even as he sighed at her expression,

“Yeah, sure. I’ll count down the drawers and be back to help everybody shortly. Remind Jack not to cut corners tonight on cleaning the grill. We have that health inspector coming down tomorrow for our recert.”

She gave him a curt nod and finished wiping tables, putting up the chairs after stacking the used plates into a black plastic tub for the purpose of carting it back to the dishers. She grabbed the tub and lugged it to the dishing station before helping the rest of the kitchen staff with a myriad of menial chores, getting the place ready for the next day’s business. She helped the dishers take out the last of the garbage, who complimented her on handling two full cans by herself. She rolled her eyes at the chauvinism but took the compliment. They were okay guys, even if they did stare at her ass when they thought she wasn’t looking.

Stopping to take off her apron near the punch-out clock, she checked to ensure she emptied her tips into the community jar to be divvied up at the end of the week and clocked out. Dave had her sign her bullshit write-up for unclean representation through foul language, after which she didn’t say anything but gave him a glare that was as good as saying fuck you.

Of course, Dave chose that moment to try and have a meeting about how much he “appreciated” everybody’s hard work, but she just waved on her way out of the kitchen with a cheery smile. The smile lasted until she got to the front door and remembered he had locked it behind the customers, as he was supposed to.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

Tonight seemed a night for sighs as she waited for the clusterfuck of corporate policy. Dave called a morale meeting to finish so he wouldn’t fire her for leaving the door unlocked after hours. After about fifteen minutes of fuming at the delay, Dave and the rest of the staff filed out of the kitchen and headed for the doors. Dave asked her politely to hang back a second as the rest of the staff filed out, and against her impulse to give him the finger and leave, she waited. Waiting while seething was a talent she had developed well this summer, it seemed.

Dave turned to her with that goofy look of concern after the others left, saying,

“Jamantha, I know you hate the after-work morale meetings, but I talked to corporate. They agreed that paying the staff for the time the meetings take is a justifiable expense, so they approved the time, even if it’s overtime. You clocked out before I could tell you, but I’ll add the quarter hour to your hours at the end of the week. I don’t know why you’re always so angry, but I want this to be a good environment for my staff.”

Shit. Maybe he wasn’t a shit stain after all. Now, she would feel guilty if she didn’t give him at least a little credit for trying. She had been bitching about the meetings since she started in the spring. She was getting sick of sighing tonight but did so and replied to his idiotic concerned expression with words…let’s go with contrition,

“Yeah, I get it, Dave. I’ll try to be better about the attitude. I get so frustrated at these f-people complaining about things that aren’t my fault.”

Dave gave a smile at her almost slip, and said,

“That’s all I’m asking for, Jamantha. I know you’re going back to college in a few weeks, but let’s try to get along at least that long, okay?”

Samantha stared at him for a few seconds before nodding reluctantly and waving goodbye as she left. She hurried to her car and only ran a few red lights on her way home to her shitty lair of an apartment building. She sprinted up the stairs after slamming her door on the way out of her car. Sprinting down the hall to her place, she damn near broke off her key in the lock.

Before her front door had finished slamming, she was out of the top of her work uniform and headed towards the bathroom, kicking off her shoes on the go and wiggle hopping out of the pants. Getting into the bathroom and tumbling into the tub in her rush required impressive agility as she turned on the water to the shower.

Snatching up her toothbrush, she globbed on more toothpaste than needed and jammed it in her mouth as she hopped into the scalding water. Shrieking around the toothbrush at the unexpected heat of the water, she used one hand to turn the water from scalding to freezing a few times as she attempted to brush her teeth through the muffled shrieks she was giving but didn’t slow her frantic motions. Pausing only to pop the cap of her shampoo and conditioner, she used one hand to finish brushing her teeth. She mashed the mixture of shampitioner into her scalp with her other hand and threw the toothbrush at her sink, splattering some foam all over her bathroom mirror.

She ignored this, opened her body wash with one hand, and sprayed her loofa with it in an assault of cleaning goo. She massaged the head of it one-handed to get it to lather quickly, rinsing the concoction of cleanliness off her head before scrubbing at all of her parts that needed the treatment most. Rinsing quickly after hitting her major areas of concern she adjusted the water carefully, her movements only now slowing. She grabbed her shaving cream off a shelf in the shower with her. She waited patiently for that water to adjust to the proper temperature before applying the shaving cream to her pits and carefully removing the hair without nicking herself. She did the same to her legs and, much more slowly, to her lady bits. Razor Burn is not worth a date and is awkward to explain anyway.

Finishing up her shaving, she carefully rinsed her entire body one more time before snapping off the water and hopping out of the tub before the water had finished trickling to a stop. She cursed loudly as her feet slipped, and she almost smashed her face on the vanity while her hands rushed to either side to catch her.

Her left smashed through the toilet tank and into the wall, sending water flying everywhere. Her right clamped down on the fall bar just outside her shower so hard she left imprints in the cheap metal, and she cursed again at the mess she had just created in her haste.

“So much for the safety deposit,”

She muttered to herself as she stood back up with the aid of the fall bar and bent over to turn off the water on the side of her toilet. Oh well, she’d fix it tomorrow. She needed to finish getting ready.

She quickly toweled her short black hair dry, thanking herself for getting it trimmed into a pixie cut, and quickly dried it with her blow dryer and efficiently put on tastefully applied makeup. She only muttered frustration at this when she wasn’t paying attention to the area around her mouth, but within twenty minutes, she had finished and moved to her bedroom to get dressed. She quickly threw on the underwear she had bought for the occasion if she decided the date was going well, followed by stockings and a pain-in-the-ass garter belt.

He better be worth the effort, or offering to let me devour his soul won’t be enough to forgive this bullshit.

She retrieved and stepped into a striped pencil skirt. Zipping herself in, she snagged the cream button-up blouse and tucked it in around the top of her skirt. Turning to the mirror hanging near her closet, she buttoned the front up most of the way, leaving a few unbuttoned at the top to entice some attention. She adjusted the blouse to hang appropriately, then laced the belt she had selected into the skirt around her waist. It was a little chunky for a belt, but she knew it would lend a bit more slenderness to her look. She went back into her bathroom. Rummaging in her jewelry box, she selected a delicate gold chain with a tiny emerald pendant and clasped it around her neck. She placed the post earrings that matched the pendant into her ears and checked herself in the mirror.

Not bad, a little rushed, but it came together nicely enough.

She glanced at a clock on her bathroom wall as a knock came from her front door and smiled.

Ten sharp, he’s punctual, that’s a good start.

She quickly applied a little product to her pixie cut and pursed her lips at herself in the mirror briefly before shutting her bathroom door behind her on the way out. She walked to the front door and slipped into her black heels she had set out before work near the door.

She swung it open to reveal her date for the evening, and the smile froze on her face. He was punctual, it seemed, but not worth dating if he showed up in ripped blue jeans and a ratty t-shirt with a faded and threadbare cartoon gator high on one side of his admittedly impressive chest. A smarmy look on his face as he took in her clearly well-put-together outfit nailed the coffin shut. He thought she was desperate.

Well, fuck.

Before he could open his mouth to comment with something inappropriately bro-ish, she leaned out of her door and looked up the hall in both directions. Not seeing anyone coming down the hall in either direction, she reached out with both hands and grabbed the sides of his head.

His grin widened in anticipation, and she snapped his neck with a powerful twist and loud crunch. Grabbing the waist of his jeans before he fell, she snatched his body into her apartment and shut the door.

She turned and looked at the fallen hopes of her evening of fun on her living room floor and sighed one last time for the night.

At least she was hungry. She supposed it was for the best. She had the early shift tomorrow anyway.