It could be the fumes from the paint stripper I’ve smeared over the woodwork in the kitchen but I suddenly find myself longing for the very first job that I ever had, at the P&C Foods in Skaneateles, New York. I started as a bag boy, which involved the obvious bagging, plus cart retrieval and processing redeemed recyclables. Later, I became a cashier and then, in an odd promotion, an assistant bookkeeper. I worked behind what was called the Courtesy Desk, as if it were a place to go for obsequious treatment. In fact, when not reconciling registers and processing checks, I would spend time sitting on the door of the safe, swinging in wide arcs or staring, aghast, at customers who had come to return meat and wanted me to smell it.  I was sixteen then seventeen and was becoming increasingly weird by Upstate New York standards (nail polish, garish vintage wear, dyed hair). Guys who worked or owned farms would come in with cow shit still caked on their boots to cash checks or buy lotto tickets and not really appreciate my efforts at looking contrary. I’d usually grit my teeth or smile big when they made comments or else loudly proclaim I was taking a break and walk out, leaving a cashier to replace me. The guys in the meat department hated me because I would get sarcastic for the entire store to hear on the intercom when they didn’t answer their phone calls (“Meat department, that call on line 1 that you haven’t answered? They’re still there, eager for advice on ham or something. Meat department, line 1″) and the ladies in the deli loved me, because I made them laugh, and would give me potato logs  and macaroni and cheese for free.

Of course I hated it then. Hated that I had to work, unlike most of the people I went to school with. Hated the hicks with their bullshit and the trash who’d come in and insist I’d shorted them when doling out food stamps. I hated when I saw people I knew, hated the garbage-bread-cheese-floor-wax smell of the place. I hated the lifers, the Union guys who’d take forever doing anything. I hated the manager and the stupid corporate promotions that the overlords at Penn Traffic would think up. I hated the old people and the people crazed by coupons. Mostly I hated it because I knew I was on my way out of that town and it seemed like such a profound waste of time.

Of course, now, I wonder what it would be like to work there still. Like Parker Posey returning to the Dairy Queen in Waiting for Guffman, would it be so terrible? I’m fourteen years older now and have become somewhat more familiar with the sacrifices required for maintaining a quiet life. Today I decided to strip paint in my kitchen. Last week I interviewed for a job that pays $20,000 less than the one that laid me off in January. Regression is an interesting thing.