we were back to selling again within the hour. one of the first
customers said he was a teacher, offered to buy us all

cookies. he was on christmas break. many wanted to know the
details, of which few were supplied to us to supply to them, a real

supply chain hold-up never to be unkinked. later that day, someone urgently came to me holding five pounds of grapefruit and said this one’s rotten,

pointing to the center of the bag for me to see. i tried to save what
i could, but it was already such a mess when it got to my hands that

i threw it all away. it was a skeleton crew all night. not many people wanted to clock in directly adjacent the phone where the threat was first

administered. by the time my boss was leaving, it was late and he
was tired of his life in assurance. he had said he’d given his son a lego set

of the taj mahal for christmas, so i asked if his son was already done
with it. he was wearing his cart-gathering clothes and he said no,

that he had only just started building, that he was working first
from the ground up.