She had ten minutes to go before the beginning of her shift.  If she clocked in more than six minutes early, or six minutes late, again, it would be very bad for her, 

so she sat in the employee's lounge at a cafeteria table with the other employees either waiting to begin their day or eating their lunch, sat and stared at the giant, movie screen-sized TV that sat in the corner and that displayed nothing but advertisements ​for the products Sunny Days sold. Buy a flat screen TV! A whole, roasted chicken! Diamond rings for your wedding day! Buy! Buy! Sell! Sell! 

     Katy worked at the deli. She looked at the worksheet the second she got there to see what were her duties would be for the day. Fry cook. Dishes. Keep the customer's eating area swept and clean. Just stay away from the actual customers was the idea. Customer service was for the younger girls, the ones who'd just graduated from high school, the cutsie-wutsies, not for the women like Katy who were thirty pounds overweight and who had never had the knack for wearing make-up or wearing their hair in a manner that made them attractive to the opposite sex. 

     The opposite sex. Oh God, just thinking about Dwayne, her "boyfriend", got Katy more depressed. 

​     The first person Katy saw when she entered the deli was Denise, who worked the cash register. Denise was thin and petite and young and had a brightness in her clear blue eyes that had never known a sad moment or serious thought.

     "Hi!" Denise chirped. "Sunny Day!" 

​     "Sunny Day!" Katy replied because, again, if she didn't it would be very bad for her, and there were cameras everywhere.  

​     Next to Denise stood Barbara and Candice, who were in the process of putting together plates of lunch for the customers. "Sunny Day!" they greeted Katy, smiles plastered on their faces. Their eyes held none of the undereducated innocence that Denise's did. They were a little wiser, these two, and a lot snottier. Katy had worked at Sunny Days for nearly six months by then, she was within a week or two of being eligible for the medical and dental coverage Sunny Days provided, and not once during that entire time had either of those two women said anything to Katy other than, "Sunny Day!" In fact, Katy felt certain they hated her.   

     Still, smile plastered on her own face, Katy replied, "Sunny Day!" to them both, and not just because of the cameras this time. 

​     No, one false move from Katy, she just knew that one or both of them would just love to run to the P.I.C., the Person In Charge, to snitch on her.  He could just hear them: "Jocelyn! Jocelyn! I just said 'Sunny Day' to Katy and she didn't say 'Sunny Day' back! In fact, she didn't even smile! She's not a member of the team, Jocelyn! She's just not Sunny Day material. You should have a talk with her! In fact, we think we think you should reprimand her!" Roughly twenty people worked at the deli, a dozen employees at any one time, and, in the half year Katy worked there, she'd never made a single friend, which was par for the course, at least for her course.

     Katy just wasn't the sort of person who made friends easily, or at all. 

     Katy went back to the fryers.  Ken, the chief fry cook for that particular shift, waved at her with his one good hand. His other hand was kind of a smaller, twisted thing, something congenital. "Happy Day!" he exclaimed, and, with Ken, there was always just the slightest edge of sarcasm at the edge of that greeting. Katy was supposed to be Ken's assistant, but Ken hated anyone near him when he worked, although, again, that disdain was all in the tone of his voice. For the cameras, he looked nothing but wildly enthusiastic. 

     "Sunny Day!" Katy replied. "What can I do for you today, Ken?"

     "Well, the roasters are just about done." 

     Great, Katy thought. The absolute worst job in the deli. Twelve full chickens were roasted every four hours. After they were done cooking, Katy had to run tongs up their asses to slip them into their plastic packaging to eventually be brought into the lobby and sold. When Ken first showed her how to do it, he made the whole process seem so simple. When Katy tried it, though, she could never get the tongs to go up the chickens' butt right. Add to that the fact that the plastic bags were only a little bit bigger than the chickens themselves. Ken could slide them right in so the birds were intact with their lightly seasoned backs up and looking all scrumptious and ready to eat. When she did it. though, even after six months...chicken chunks went everywhere, all over the plastic packaging and everything else. Katy couldn't honestly imagine anyone actually eating any of the chickens she packaged, and yet...yet...No one else wanted to do it, so...

CONTINUE