Today’s poem is sliding in a little late (but still within the day, so it totally counts) because today was basically a day from hell and my patience was so fried by the end of the day that I didn’t have the will to think about work, much less compose poetry about it. But now that I’ve had my dinner, my run, and have my 4th of July cupcakes for work tomorrow in the oven, I’m ready to post today’s efforts.

Continuing with yesterday’s venting theme, I bring you a few of my favorite things. Admittedly this one is a little less unpolished than the others, but writing a poem a day creates some interesting time constraints that I’m still learning to work with. For fun, I decided to rhyme.

A Few of My “Favorite” Things

Children, unwatched, run through the aisles.
But employees must greet their parents with smiles,
Though they tear through the store—small tornadoes,
Rifling through racks full of freshly shipped clothes.
Never mind that I’m trying to put them away,
Or use them to fill—yet again—an empty display.
Babies that wail, assaulting my ears.
Their sticky faces dribbled with—I hope—tears.
The eternal question, “Can you mark this thing down?”
Respond with a “no,” heavy-lined lips pull into a frown,
Give them “99 cents” and they scoff to my face,
Like I get to make the rules in this place.
That silence that follows when I say “How are you?”
Or I parrot “have a good day,” and get no “you, too.”
This list could go on, one for each day of the year.
But you know what, I’m tired. I think I’ll stop here.

Note: I think this one is pretty self explanatory. It’s a rhymed list of things that annoy me while at work–but it’s just things that happened today and is not even remotely exhaustive. It’s good to know I’ll always have that tactic to fall back on if nothing else strikes me during a shift.