“Fifteen minutes,” I remind myself, “just fifteen minutes until you can go home.”

Someone shakes the store’s gate, almost like the bars on a jail cell door. Shouting like an enraged guard through the metal wall, she asks, “Did you find any car keys?” While the Swiffer floats in front of me, guiding my way like a golden lab, I search the floor near where she shopped. Instead of seeing her keys, I notice clumps of lavender, sparkly dust collecting in corners next to torn tags. I make a mental note to clean all that before we shut down the store for the night.

“I’m sorry, I don’t see anything,” I say as sweetly as one can possibly be after working in customer service for five hours.
“You didn’t even f***ing look,” she snarls with her glossy white, shark-like, teeth.

And just like that, skeletons rattle in my mind, whispering their usual, malicious chants. “Worthless. Unloved. Damaged.” Sweet compliments try to sing their songs with wind chimes, but the rattling bones shake my cage.
Just a few rude words set me back beside the skeletons.